About Russian sobornost. Village life of one of the village Life in the village was a boy for me

How strange, I went several times with my father to Moscow. I was with my grandmother, Ekaterina Ivanovna, I was in a big restaurant, and I didn’t like anything - neither Moscow, nor my grandmother, nor the restaurant. Didn't like the way this squalid apartment in the countryside, like this one dark night in winter, where dark huts sleep in a row, where there is a deaf, snowy, boring road, where the moonlight shines all year round and the dog howls in the street. What anguish of the heart, what charm in this melancholy, what fading, what beauty in this humble life , in black bread, occasionally in bagel, in a mug of kvass. What sadness in the hut when the lamp is shining, how I like Ignashka, Seryozhka, Kiryushka. What bosom friends. What charm in them, what friendship. How affectionate the dog is, how I like the countryside. What good aunts, strangers, undressed. I already disliked the luxury of my well-dressed aunts - the Ostapovs, aunt Alekseeva, where are these crinolines, this exquisite table, where everyone sits so decorously. What a bore. How I like the will of the meadows, the forests, the poor huts. I like to heat the stove, cut brushwood and mow grass - I already knew how, and Uncle Peter praised me, telling me: "Well done, you are also mowing." And I drank, tired, kvass from a wooden ladle. In Moscow, I will go out - stone pavements, strangers. And here I will go out - grass or snowdrifts, far away ... And people are dear, my own. Everyone is kind, no one scolds me. Everyone will pat on the head or laugh ... How strange. I will never go to the city. I will never be a student. They are all evil. They always scold everyone. No one here asks for money, and I only have a seven. And she lies with me all the time. And my father doesn't have much money. And how many there were. I remember how much my grandfather had money. The boxes were filled with gold. And now no. How good is Seryoga. There, a tailor-soldier sews a fur coat for him. So he told me ... How he got lost in the forest, how the robbers attacked and how he drowned them all ... That's how good it is to listen. And how he drove the goblin into the swamp, and tore off his tail. So he begged to be let go. And he holds the tail and says "no" and says what kind of ransom: "Take me," he says, "to Petersburg to the tsar." He sat on his neck, straight to the king and came. The king says: "Well done soldier!" And he gave him a silver rupee. He even showed the rupee... Such a big, old-fashioned steering wheel. Here are the people. Not fools. There are many interesting things in the village. Wherever you go, everyone tells you things that don't happen. What to tell, what happens, as in Moscow. In Moscow they tell everything that happens. But here - no. Here now so, and in an hour - it is not known what will happen. This is, of course, a remote village. And how good log houses are. A new hut ... oh, it smells like pine. Would never leave. But my boots are thin, I need to fix the soles. They tell me that the boots of porridge are asking, turned around. He told his father that they were asking for twenty kopecks for the repair. The father ordered to give it back: “I,” he says, “will pay.” But a week is not given. I wear felt boots. Father brought prosphora - how delicious with tea. Prosphora should not be given to a dog; Malanya said earlier that if you give prosphora to a dog, you will die right away. And I wanted. It's good that he didn't.

V. [IN THE PROVINCE. THE FIRST DIFFICULTIES AND SUCCESSES IN PAINTING]

Bashkiria village Sakhanovka 1958-1968

It was a long time ago, back in 1958, it was that year, having finished the first grade of a general education school, for the first time in my life I went to the village.

Those post-war years were difficult for everyone, they just had to survive, their parents worked six days a week. On weekends, they grew potatoes, planted some vegetables, fed pigs, my father managed to grow even millet, here he was original, his rural childhood and several years of living in occupied Germany taught him a lot. Be that as it may, given that my mother worked in a bacteriological laboratory (sometimes edible meat was brought for analysis), and my father made felt boots at home, our small family, father, mother, myself and my younger brother, lived relatively tolerably. But it was not very reasonable to leave me in the city for the summer, I was quite a hooligan (once I even almost burned the hut in which we lived), and therefore required supervision.

My father lived in the village where he was born, his sister lived, she didn’t have a husband, she alone raised her son who was five years older than me, by village standards, he was already an adult man capable of doing certain work, and even more so to look after such a fool as me.
In general, I was urgently christened (by that time I was “non-Christ” and my mother was against sending me from home in this position) and taken to the village.

The village was forty kilometers from the city and six kilometers from the road, along which it was possible to hitchhike, but six kilometers had to be walked along the edge of the forest. For me, a city boy, this was a decent distance, but as it turned out later, this was not considered a distance, especially in the summer. The first time I was lucky, we reached the village in a cart, which happened to be a passing cart drawn by a horse. And it was the first time in my life.

Aunt Valya met us cordially and even with undisguised joy, by that time I already knew her, she came to the city several times on business and spent the night with us, we became friends with Sasha instantly, later I realized that there was no urban affectation in the village people, especially in boys.

This is how I first ended up in the village, all the next ten years of schooling I spent almost all school holidays in the village of Aunt Valya. “Almost”, because sometimes I spent several weeks during the summer in pioneer camps, my father had the opportunity to get vouchers, in the production where he worked, he was considered a party activist.
And yet I spent most of my summer holidays in the countryside.

The village was called Sakhanovka and was large, I think that about a hundred households, by my first visit, it was. I have no doubt that even more families lived in it before the war and later, but the surnames can be counted on one hand, the most common was the “clan” of the Berdinskys, many families bore the surnames of Chernovs, several families were Zykovs and Vagins somehow lived apart. Perhaps that's all, it is worth adding that all these families were unimaginably, for me, intertwined in a way. It would be interesting to understand this mixture of people and families, but due to my youth, it was of little interest to me.

Sakhanovka was located, one street, in a lowland, between a decent hillock (rather a long and high hill, overgrown with small shrubs and grass) which was called "paskotina" and a very deep ravine, located along the entire village from North to South. The village stretched, two or three kilometers, in extreme cases, there was a cemetery on both ends of the village. In the northern part, in front of the village, there was a wooden school that looked more like a log house. There was only one teacher there, I don’t remember her name, she taught until the fourth grade, all the students, regardless of age, studied in the same room, after the fourth grade the children went to school in a neighboring village five kilometers away. Sometimes in winter, they were taken there on horseback, but more often they traveled this way on foot. Later, when the school in our village was closed, a boarding school was made at the neighboring school, the youngsters lived there for weeks, they came home only on weekends. In general, rural education is a complete hassle, I am still surprised, because very literate guys and girls came out of these schools.

Not far from the school there was a decent lake, forty meters in diameter, absolutely round in shape with a cone-shaped bottom, the depth in the center of which no one knew. It was said that the men tried to measure its depth with reins, but they didn’t succeed, they called these lakes failures.
There were several of them in the area, two were on the "pascotine", one was completely dry and deep, overgrown with shrubs and bird cherry, large blocks of mica lay at the bottom of the cone of the shaped funnel, we gladly cut out all kinds of figures from it, but it was difficult to get to it, it was deep and the slopes were very steep. The second was flooded with water and almost completely silted up, the water there was dirty and smelly, even cattle did not drink from this lake. The fourth lake was deeper and the water in it was cleaner, it was located outside the southern outskirts of the village and was used to water the numerous herds grazing in the area, but they rarely swam there, unlike the lake in the northern part of the village.

They said that in these places there are many underground rivers, which eroded the underground "shores", forming these very "failures". Some of them were flooded with water, and in some of them the collapsed vault blocked the channel, and the water went the other way, leaving large funnels in the ground dry. How true this is, or is it just a legend, no one knows for sure, just as they don’t even know when it was. I have never seen anything like this anywhere else in my life.

On three sides, the village was surrounded by mixed forests, different trees grew in them, but mostly they were lindens and oaks, there were also birches, elms and other deciduous trees, so there were beehives in many farmsteads, bees brought honey directly to the houses, it was very comfortable. Once upon a time, fellings were carried out in these forests and these places were densely overgrown with raspberries, the villagers collected them with pleasure and in large quantities. Strawberry berries were strewn with the slopes of the "pascotina", and given the presence of bird cherry around each house, the villagers had enough berries in abundance.
For some reason, apple trees did not take root in the village gardens, and very few vegetables were planted, large, forty-acre vegetable gardens were sown with potatoes and beets. I can only explain this by difficulties with watering, the water in these places was very deep, so there were not many wells and they were dug at the bottom of that very deep ravine, can you imagine with what difficulties drinking water was delivered. There were no pumps in those days, just as there was no electricity with all the now familiar household amenities.

It should be noted that this did not really bother the villagers, they were illuminated by kerosene lamps, they were not very worried about the lack of radios, but there were no televisions in those days in the city either.
The way of life was built according to village rules, they got up at dawn, went to bed at sunset, by the way about water, it was almost impossible to get to the wells in winter, people provided water for themselves and cattle, melting snow, there was always a lot of it, and he was exceptionally clean.

Behind the ravine, almost in the middle of the village, there was a horse yard, it was possible to get to it along the dam poured through the ravine, every spring it was washed away by floods, and it was filled up again. Sometimes the horse yard was called collective farm, I will explain why. Well, the equestrian, of course, there was a whole row of stables, there were quite a lot of horses, probably more than fifty, all of them were used for agricultural needs, every morning the foreman assigned them to work. With their help, they were taken out of the fields sleepily, while harvesting on horseback, the wolves of wheat were turned over. There were no combines in their present form at that time, a mower was pulled separately by a tractor, which mowed and laid the wheat in drags, and then, after drying, the unit was dragged by the same tractor, which picked up and threshed the grain. From the bunker of this unit, the grain was reloaded either into cars or into bags and brought to the horse yard on the same horses.
In the same place, something like a current was equipped, where the brought grain was sifted and laid in barns for storage, they were right there, probably, it was already a collective farm yard. Part of the grain was transported and delivered to the elevator. What remained in the barns was subsequently used for sowing the next year, part was used as fodder, and part was distributed to collective farmers in the form of payment for workdays.
Collective farmers brought grain to mills, ground and baked bread from flour for a whole year. This is about wheat, but they also gave out rye, which was also used as fodder, steamed and fed cattle in the yards.

I would like in this place to talk about my cousin, Sasha, for some reason everyone, including me, called him Shurka.
I already wrote that this teenager was brought up without a father, it was quite difficult for Aunt Valya to raise him, in those days it was not easy to survive, she was faced with the task of simply feeding him. In her studies, she could not help him at all, since she herself was illiterate, in the statements she put a cross instead of a signature. They didn’t have much livestock, they kept a few sheep, and a dozen and a half chickens, they very rarely fed a piglet. And even with this living creature it was difficult, the sheep had to be pastured, the chickens had to be protected from foxes and ferrets, the pig required a lot of feed.
In general, Shurka lived on his own, the collective farm understood this and gave him some kind of work, the main occupation in the summer for him was to look after the breeding collective farm stallion, he had to be fed, walked, cleaned and taken to the lake to bathe, the stallion was not strained with work, so Shurka coped with it quite well. Shurka's accompanying load was to organize grazing of horses at night, as a rule, teenagers were engaged in this, everyone went to the "night" with pleasure.
And another collective farm work that my brother did with pleasure was the dressage of young horses, he had to accustom them to the saddle, and later the harness. The whole village quarrel envied him, he did it masterfully, there was no fear in him at all, and no one from the adults wanted to take on this work.
For this lesson, he himself wove a bridle from horsehair, but he had unmeasured all kinds of whips, he wove them from belts and cord threads, constantly, and skillfully used them, in my opinion, best of all in the village.
He put me in the saddle in the very first summer of my visit, and put me on an unbroken horse. I hardly remember how I managed to hold on to it, clinging to the mane. The only thing that saved me was that, having whipped her with a whip, Shurka, in an unimaginable way, directed her gallop up the "paskotina", naturally I could not control the horse, and she rushed uphill until she was tired, out of breath, she stopped and gave me the opportunity to get off her crawl, Shurka only smirked. If my aunt had seen this, she would have killed him.
Be that as it may, after that, I treated horses calmly, rode a lot in the saddle and without it, and learned how to harness horses, working with my brother.

At the request, horses with harness were given and, simply, to the yards of collective farmers, on the farm it was necessary to prepare and bring firewood to the yard for the winter, hay for livestock, bring grain to the mill, plow the garden and do a bunch of other things with the help of the horse. The management of the collective farm, in this, always went forward, realizing that otherwise people simply would not survive.
Perhaps it would be appropriate to say what else Shurka taught me during my first summer in the countryside. For example, I didn’t know how to swim, although I lived in a city between two rivers, I was probably still small and my parents did not allow one to go to the river.

In the village lake, as far as I can remember, a large oak log floated, it had the shape of the letter Y, it was black and slippery on the outside, and at the same time it did not sink for years. All the village children gladly used it as a float. means when bathing, they swam on it, dived from it, in general they fooled around, it, if desired, easily turned over. Here, on this log, Shurka, together with me, swam to the middle of the lake (I wrote about its depth) and simply turned the log over. To all my floundering and cries for help, he, having sailed to the shore, did not pay attention, in general, as best he could, he had to swim out himself. Much later, I realized that in all such situations, he looked after me, and nothing would happen to me, but he taught me everything in this way, and by and large I am grateful to him.
After the first visit to the village, upon returning to the city, among my peers, I was the most "cool".

Naturally, there was also a negative part of upbringing, at night we, together with him, stole from the neighbors. The fact is that living on bread and eggs, even taking into account berries, was somehow not very good, I wanted something else.
Shurka knew that most of the villagers who kept cows, milk, cream, sour cream and butter were kept in those very deep wells, of course there were no refrigerators, and the bottom of the wells was the coldest place. Here on the ropes, after the evening milking, all these goodies were lowered there. We, quite at night, got to these wells, took out what was drained, and ate plenty, not when, without taking anything with us, we just wanted to eat. If it had been opened, my aunt would have killed both of us, but we got caught on something.
My brother really wanted to have a bicycle (he didn’t have enough horses), and this was a rarity in the city in those days, but someone gave him a bicycle broken to smithereens, he repaired what he could, and some spare parts. I tried to remove parts from neighbors' bicycles at night. This was naturally determined instantly, in villages where locks were not hung on the front doors, it was not customary to steal, therefore, they caught us, took away what was stolen, and the aunt beat us with rods, so that we ran away for two days, did not come home. These rods (for some reason she called them Whigs) she always had in stock, and we were afraid of them, but her brother got it the most.

I'll tell you how it worked on the collective farm.
The foreman distributed the work, he was a significant person in the village, literally everything depended on him, his power extended to almost all collective farmers, the only ones he did not dispose of were machine operators, they were assigned work on the central estate, and to some extent the village blacksmith he usually knew what to do.
Well, for the rest, every morning, at dawn, he rode a horse around the whole village, banging the shaft of a whip on the windows, drove people to work, and at the same time determined the type of work that one or another must perform.
Refusal to work meant falling out of favor with the foreman, and this meant a reduction in the workdays that he counted, and a bunch of other troubles. For example, he will refuse a request to give a horse, or allocate an inconvenient plot for cutting firewood. It may simply not give meadows for mowing hay, then in general your domestic animals will be left without food for the winter.

It was real slavery, a little later, as soon as the collective farmers began to issue passports, people fled en masse from the villages. But this is later, but for now everyone went to work, regardless of age and illness, even gave work to us teenagers, what my brother did, I already wrote, but even I, a stranger to the collective farm, also had to do something. I had to, being in a dusty thresher bunker, push grain into the bunker opening when loading, for some reason it itself got stuck. Considering my successful horse management skills, I worked on a team harnessed to a large "rake" raking straw and sometimes hay, then the men collected all this into stacks for winter storage. I sifted grain in the collective farm yard, it did not require much physical effort, and most often teenagers did it.

In general, a lot of things, you can’t remember everything, but it was not customary to refuse work, though Aunt Valya, feeling sorry for me, sometimes left me at home, and I did household chores, mainly cleaning the house (it was twelve square meters) watering the garden and preparing dinner for the evening, my aunt praised me, saying that I can do it.

Separately, I would like to say about the work on the beets, it was a real hard labor. The allotments were counted, without asking, according to the number of people in the family, and even the allotment of aunt Valya and Shurka was, by my standards, a whole field, without end and without edge.
It was done this way, plowed and planted beets in the field of the collective farm, it was at least somehow mechanized, and then the collective farmers went to weeding and thinning in the field with hoes, weeding their plots, it was necessary twice during the summer. Many simply physically could not do this, and if there were relatives somewhere, they invited urban residents to this hard labor.
Later, as a rule, in late autumn, already from under the snow, it was necessary to pull the grown beets out of the ground, clean them from dirt and hand them over to a collection point, which took a couple of weeks. It was simply impossible not to do this, firstly, sugar was given out from the weight of the delivered beets, in winter you can’t do without it.
Most importantly, the rest of what was earned was given out in money, this was the only way to earn money, it was simply impossible to do without them, there would be nothing to buy salt for the winter, and clothes were also needed. It was imperative to pay taxes, God, these slaves were also flogged with three skins, for cattle, a small house, for an apple tree in the garden, and for everything.
So everyone, without exception, hunched over on beets. And your obedient servant, including.

Salt, sugar, flour were imported from the autumn, at that time a mobile shop appeared in the village, everything was sold from it, from shovels, rubber boots and ending with canned food, herring and various sweets, they even brought “city” bread, the villagers tried it with pleasure. And everything for which there was enough money was harvested in the fall, in winter it was impossible to get close to the village, the only connection with the outside world was a sleigh pulled by a horse, and even then it was not always possible to move around on it. So the villagers knew that if something happens in the winter, God forbid you get sick or a fire, someone will not help.

A little bit I mentioned the house where my relatives lived, I will write a little about it. This is how the majority lived, in a village where there were no men in the family (many of them remained on the fronts of the Patriotic War), and even where there were men, the houses did not differ much. So, the houses were naturally wooden, cut down mainly from aspen, the dimensions were really three by four meters, and a third of this area was occupied by a Russian stove, by the way, one of the household slept on it. The house was covered with straw, in the absence of fodder they removed it from the roofs and fed the cattle to it, then they blocked it, but this was not with me.
Across the passage from the stove, at the door, there was another couch, my aunt had an iron bed, I saw wooden beds, some had large chests, you could also sleep on them, in the center of the house, there was a table with several stools by the windows . In the “red” corner, a small iconostasis was necessarily arranged, it was a holy place, behind the icons they kept the most valuable things, documents, letters from relatives and from the front (they were never thrown away), some money, if any.
On holidays, a candle burned there, and some had a lamp.
In the opposite corner, as a rule, there was a shelf with dishes, the walls between the windows were occupied by photographs in wooden frames, they were also very much appreciated in village houses.
That’s all the “typical” decoration of a village house, they attached a “three-wall” to it, also chopped, but used it for household needs, stored food supplies and valuable rural implements there, sometimes they also arranged a sunbed there. But this part of the house, although log-built, was not heated, we slept there only in the summer, but my brother and I generally slept in the hayloft, like most of the boys in the village.

It should be noted that in the summer (and I mostly spent this time of the year there), in general, few people used the main house, periodically, once every two or three weeks, women heated the oven to bake bread in it. We loved these days, for some reason they baked bread early in the morning, we, potzanva, were still sleeping, and we woke up from the smell of baked goods, and the smell spread to the whole neighborhood, and to the hayloft too. Women, after they baked bread, baked all kinds of buns, cheesecakes, sometimes pies, and most importantly pancakes from sour dough, even in a hot oven.
“Sweeped” us from the hayloft to the table instantly, the table was already set, pastries, butter and sour cream, fresh milk, boiled eggs, there was jam in the saucers, some had honey. In general, it was a "royal" breakfast. Never again have I had to eat pancakes from sour dough baked in a Russian oven. The dough for them was not specially fermented, it was the same dough as for baking bread, in my opinion, it was only slightly sweetened, but the pancakes were taken out of the oven bubbly, tender and incredibly tasty.

But on weekdays, everything was much simpler, on a taganka (this is a metal tripod with a cast iron ring) on ​​the street, in cast iron, an uncomplicated soup was prepared with some kind of millet or pasta and seasoned with a beaten egg, sometimes (if there was something) fried potatoes, and more often just baked it on the coals. Somehow I didn’t really suffer from culinary simplicity, we didn’t eat much in the city either, but it was only like that for my two summers, in the countryside. In the third year, Aunt Valya got a cow, she called her Daughter, and in terms of food, we started a completely different life.

About the cow, it was a unique animal, firstly, she was small, a little more than a goat, much smaller than ordinary cows, and secondly, based on the first, she ate little, and it was not difficult to feed her, thirdly, she did not give very much a lot of milk. Three or four liters in the morning and five or six in the evening, while this milk contained half the cream.
Accordingly, Aunt Vili, always and unlimitedly, had sour cream, cottage cheese and, if necessary, butter. This suited the aunt's family more completely, she herself did not drink milk at all, maybe only with tea, and Shurka could not even drink so much. In general, there was no need to climb other people's wells. And one more thing, either a virtue or a disadvantage this cow had, she calved only heifers. Everyone in their village, and even nearby, knew about the merits of aunt's cows, and set up a queue for the purchase of her next heifer.

Well, we, in particular, had enough time for rest.
We went for berries, of course we ate more than we collected, swam as much as we wanted, I liked to carve all kinds of figures from mica (soft, pliable material), among other things, for example, I cut several sets of chess. This addiction became my hobby for the rest of my life.

In the evenings, after milking cows and dinner, they gathered for "gatherings", there were many young people, they came there, in my opinion, from five to fifteen years old and it was quite fun, they sat up until dawn. Once or twice a week we went to the cinema, this is in a neighboring village, five kilometers away, but this did not bother us. The main thing is that we knew in advance what the film was about, for us all the films were divided into three categories, about love, about war and about intelligence officers, the latter we especially loved. Movie tickets cost a penny, begged for them from adults. Shurka himself, and me, accompanied me free of charge, the projectionist was his friend. My brother was dashing, he had a lot of friends in all the villages in the district. By the way, he not only taught me to swim, ride a horse, with him I learned to ride a bike, a little later, with him I first tried mead, with which, as it seemed to me, I almost died. We drank it at the collective farm apiary, she stood in the forest, not far from Sakhanovka, and Aunt Valina's friend was in charge of her, we often ran to her to eat honey, helped her with something, and she treated us with pleasure.

This is how the village lived approximately in the fifties and sixties of the twentieth century, somewhere not much better, somewhere worse, but in principle everything was the same for everyone. Probably, a little bit in the central estate life was easier. They already had electricity, small shops, there were more schools, it was easier for the kids.
But for sure, they did not have such a rich and unique nature, the earth was less polluted, one smell of herbs, which was worth it. Auntie, inviting me to her once again, as an argument used the phrase, “we smell like perfume,” she meant that it smells like perfume.

In general, I understand the request of my father to bury him after his death, in one of the cemeteries of Sakhanovka. Let me remind you that he was born in this village. To my shame, I could not fulfill his last will, he died in February 2000, it was not realistic to get to these places at that time, I am very sorry.

Regrettably, I witnessed how this Russian village was fading away.
For the first time I noticed, on my next trip, that the village herd became so small that the shepherds refused to be hired. Residents who continued to keep cattle, grazed it in turn, I helped Aunt Valya as best I could, Shurka served in the Army at that time, so this burden fell on me, I tried to get Aunt Valya in turn as much as possible.
The village school was closed, those children who still remained in the village studied at the school of the central estate. Within two years, there was no need for a horse and collective farm yard, everything was broken, the inhabitants pilfered the remains. Young people dispersed, they left to study in the city or went to the Army and did not return back. The old people gradually died out, or they were taken to their children in the city.
So by 1969, in just ten years, only my aunt was left to winter in the village, the village was empty.
To spend the winter alone, Aunt Valya got scared and my father and I dismantled her house, and they found a house in the city for her. At that time I was called to serve in the Army. Returning two years later, they told me that Aunt Valya could not live in the city and asked to buy her a house in a neighboring village, her father complied with her request and until her death, Aunt Valya and Shurka lived for almost forty years in the village of Trudovka, this is three kilometers from Sakhanovka.
This village is partly preserved, although it is now inhabited by summer residents, so in winter Trudovka is almost empty. In it, unlike Sakhanovka, at least there is electricity.

Well, Sakhanovka was gone, like thousands of other similar villages, all that was left of it was two cemeteries overgrown with grass and a ravine. The lake turned into a puddle, but on the “paskotine” they found sand suitable for the production of silicate bricks, in general, this whole mountain consisted of this sand.
So for the last forty-plus years, sand has been removed from this place. The once beautiful hill has turned into continuous quarries, there is nothing left there, no lakes, no sinkholes, no forests, no berries, a continuous “lunar” landscape.

A part of the name of the village remained, the quarry was called "Sakhan", a sign with such an inscription can be seen on the Orenburg highway fifty kilometers from Ufa.

Life in the village was a pleasure for me, a boy. It seemed that there is not and cannot be better than my life. The whole day I am in the forest, in some sandy ravines, where tall grasses and huge firs have fallen in the river. There, with my comrades, I dug out a house for myself in a precipice, behind the branches of fallen fir trees. Which house! We reinforced the yellow walls of sand, the ceiling with sticks, laid branches of fir trees, made, like animals, a lair, a stove, laid a pipe, caught fish, took out a frying pan, fried this fish along with the gooseberries that were stolen in the garden. The dog was no longer alone, Druzhok, but four Integers. The dogs are wonderful. They guarded us, and it seemed to the dogs, as well as to us, that this is the best life that can be, for which you can praise and thank the creator. What a life! Bathing in the river; what kind of animals we saw, there are none. Pushkin said correctly: “There are traces of unseen animals on unknown Paths ...” There was a badger, but we didn’t know what a badger was: some special big pig. The dogs chased him, and we ran, we wanted to catch him, teach him to live together. But they didn't catch him - he ran away. He went straight to the ground, disappeared. Wonderful life...

The summer has passed. The rains have come, autumn. The trees have fallen. But it was good in our house, which no one knew. They heated the stove - it was warm. But one day my father came with a teacher, a tall, thin man with a small beard.th. So dry and hard. He pointed to me: to go to school tomorrow. It was scary. School is something special. And what is scary is unknown, but scary is the unknown.
In Mytishchi, on the highway near the outpost, in a large stone house, on which an eagle is written"Volunteer government". In the left half of the house was located, in a large room, a school.
The desks are black. The students are all there. Prayer at the icons. Smells like incense. The priest reads a prayer and sprinkles water. Let's go to the cross. We sit down at the desks. The teacher gives us feathers,pens, pencils and notebooks, and a book - a wonderful book: "Native Word" with pictures. We, already literate, are placed on one side of the desks, and the younger ones are on the other.
The first lesson starts with reading. Another teacher comes, ruddy, short, cheerfulth and kind, and orders to sing after him. Let's sing:

Oh, you are my will, my will
You are my gold.
Will - the falcon of heaven,
Will is a bright dawn...
Didn't you come down with dew,
Am I not seeing in a dream?
Ile fervent prayer
Flew to the king.

Great song. First time I heard. No one was scolded here.
The second lesson was arithmetic. I had to go to the blackboard and write the numbers, and how much it would be one with the other. Wrong.
And so the teaching began every day. There was nothing scary at school, butoh so wonderful. And so I liked the school.
The teacher, Sergei Ivanovich, came to my father to drink tea and dine. There was a serious man. And they all said tricky things with their father, and it seemed to me that his father told him everything was wrong - he didn’t say that.
I remember how once my father fell ill, lay in bed. He had a fever and a fever. And he gave me a ruble and said:
- Go, Kostya, to the station and get me medicine there, so I wrote a note, show it at the station.
I went to the station and showed the note to the gendarme. He mdid not say, going out onto the porch:
- You see, boy, that little house over there, on the edge of the bridge. In this house lives a man who has medicine.
I came to this house. Has entered. Dirty in the house. Some are worth measures with oats, weights, scales, bags, bags, harness.Then the room: a table, everywhere everything is heaped, forced. A locker, chairs, and at the table, by a tallow candle, sits an old man in glasses, and there is a large book. I went up to him and gave him a note.
- Here, - I say, - I came for medicine.
He read the note and said, "WaitAnd". He went to the locker, opened it, took out a small scale and put white powder from the jar on the scales, and put small flat coppers in the other pan of the scales. He weighed it, wrapped it in a piece of paper and said:
- Twenty cents.
I gave a ruble. He went to the bed, and then II saw that he had a small yarmulke on the back of his head. For a long time he did something, got change, and I looked at the book - not a Russian book. Some big black characters in a row. A wonderful book.
When he gave me the change and the medicine, I asked him, showing him the face:
- What is written here, what is this book?
He answered me:
- Boy, this is a book of wisdom. But where you hold your finger, it says: "Fear most of all the villain-fool."
“That's the thing,” I thought. And the dear thought: “What kind of fool is this?” And towhen I came to my father, gave him the medicine, which he diluted in a glass of water, drank and wrinkled - it is clear that the medicine is bitter - I said that I got the medicine from such a strange old man who reads a book, not Russian, special, and told me that it says: "Fear most of all the foolish robber."
- Who, fairy tales to me, - I asked my father, - this fool and where he lives. Is there any in Mytishchi?
“Kostya,” said the father. - He, such a fool, lives everywhere ... But this old man told you the truth, the worst thing is a fool.
I thought a lot about this. “Who is this?” I kept thinking. - The teacher is smart, Ignashka is smart, Seryozhka too. So I could not find out who this fool was.
Remembering once at school during a break, I went up to the teacher and asked him, telling about the old man, who is the fool.
“If you know a lot, you will soon grow old,” the teacher told me. But only.

I remember I was learning a lesson. And the teacher was in another room visiting us, withmy father. And they all argued. I remember my father used to say:
- It's good to love the people, to wish them well. It is commendable - to wish to make him happy and well-being. But this is not enough. Even a fool can wish for this...
I'm worried here.
“And a fool wants the good of the people,” continued the father, “hell is paved with good intentions. It costs nothing - to wish. You have to be able to do it. This is the essence of life. And we have grief from the fact that everyone only desires, and from this they can be lost, as you can be lost from a fool.
Still scarier for mestuck. Who is this fool? A robber, I know, he stands by the forest or by the road, with a club and an axe. If you go, he will kill him, as they killed the cabman Peter. My comrades - Seryozhka and Ignashka - went outside the village - to look. He lay under the matting, stabbed to death. Stra-a-ashno. I did not sleep all night ... And I began to be afraid to walk outside the village in the evening. In the forest, to the river - nothing, he will not catch, I will run away. Yes, I have a gun, I'll gasp it myself. But the Fool is scarier. What is he.
I could not imagine, and again stuck to my father, asking:
- Is he wearing a red hat?
- No, Kostya, - said the father, - they are different. These are those who want good things, but do not know how to do it well. And everything goes bad.
I was at a loss.

How strange, I went several times with my father to Moscow. Was with my grandmother, Katerina Ivanovna, was ina large restaurant, and I didn’t like anything - neither Moscow, nor my grandmother’s, nor the restaurant. I didn’t like it as much as this wretched apartment in the village, like this dark night in winter, where dark huts sleep in a row, where there is a deaf, snowy, boring road, where the moonlight shines all year round and the dog howls in the street. What heartache, what beauty in this longing, what fading, what beauty in this modest life, in black bread, occasionally in bagel, in a mug of kvass. What sadness in the hut when the lamp is shining, how I like Ignashka, Seryozhka, Kiryushka. What bosom friends. What charm in them, what friendship. How affectionate the dog is, how I like the countryside. What good aunts, strangers, undressed. I already disliked the luxury of my well-dressed aunts - the Ostapovs, aunt Alekseeva, where are these crinolines, this exquisite table, where everyone sits so decorously. What a bore. How I like the will of the meadows, the forests, the poor huts. I like to heat the stove, cut brushwood and mow grass - I already knew how, and Uncle Peter praised me, telling me: “Well done, you are also mowing.” And I drank, tired, kvass from a wooden ladle.
In Moscow, I will go out - stone pavements, strangers. And here I will go out - grass or snowdrifts, far away ... And people are dear, my own. Everyone is kind, no one scolds me. Everyone will pat on the head or laugh ... How strange. I neverI will go to the city. I will never be a student. They are all evil. They always scold everyone. No one here asks for money, and I only have a seven. And she lies with me all the time. And my father doesn't have much money. And how many there were. I remember how much my grandfather had money. The boxes were filled with gold. And now no. How good is Seryoga. There, a tailor-soldier sews a fur coat for him. So he told me ... How he got lost in the forest, how the robbers attacked and how he drowned them all ... That's how good it is to listen. And how he drove the goblin into the swamp, and tore off his tail. So he begged to be let go. And he holds the tail and says "no" and says what kind of ransom: "Take me," he says, "to Petersburg to the tsar." He sat on his neck, straight to the king and came. The king says: "Well done soldier!" And he gave him a silver rupee. He showed the rupee... Big rupee, old one. Here are the people. Not fools.
There are many interesting things in the village. Wherever you go, everyone tells you things that don't happen. What to tell, what happens, as in Moscow. In Moscow they tell everything that happens. And thatt - no. Here now so, and in an hour - it is not known what will happen. This is, of course, a remote village. And how good log houses are. A new hut ... oh, it smells like pine. Would never leave. But my boots are thin, I need to fix the soles. They tell me that the porridge boots are asking, turned around. He told his father that they were asking for twenty kopecks for the repair. The father ordered to give it back: “I,” he says, “will pay.” But a week is not given. I wear felt boots. Father brought prosphora - how delicious with tea. Prosphora should not be given to a dog; Malanya told me that if you give prosphora to a dog, you will die right away. And I wanted. It's good that he didn't.

Village life is a special life. Real life. If you are imbued with her, then she will never let you go, or, more precisely, you will not want to let her go, Life in the village is the enjoyment of nature, communication with the common people, freedom ...
This time I want to show and tell how the village of Kozychevo looks like. Or rather, how it lives. It is located 12 km from my native village Kustovoe, Belgorod region. As a child, I often visited here, went fishing with friends.

The last time I was here was in 2000.

The road to the village lies through the village of Kalinino and fields, fields, fields...

Roads are destroyed not by themselves, but by the fact that cars drive on them. Due to the almost complete lack of traffic here, it looks decent, despite years of lack of repair.

There is a pond near the village. This is where I fished. One day in my life will remain forever. This was in May 2000. We came for fishing and decided to stay here overnight. I have never been so cold..
Now the pond belongs to one person, now the local resident Pavel is not allowed to go fishing .... even with one fishing rod.
- Once a security guard came to our village. So I ask him if I can sometimes fish with a fishing rod, Pavel tells me.
- Well, in principle, you can, - the guard answers him.
- I'm sitting like this, I'm catching fish, he comes up to me and says, well, he got caught. Why did you get caught, you yourself allowed me to catch, - says Pavel to the guard.
“Moreover, Putin said that it is possible with one fishing rod,” Pavel continues his story.
- But Putin is not a decree for me. Maybe he’s a decree for you, but I have my own bosses, ”the guard answers him and drives him away from the pond.

Nothing has happened or changed during this time. As there was no gas, so it is not. As there were power outages, so they are. As there was no mobile signal here, so there is none.
But that's not the point, is it?
There is a life here. Labor life.

Here the locals are sifting seeds from garbage. In windy weather, this should be done, just the right time.

According to official figures, there are three streets here: Centralnaya, Polevaya and Lenina.
But in reality there is one street and 17 houses. Most of them are abandoned.
Like this. Many houses made of wood and clay have already collapsed.

It is good that today there are still villages living out their lives, surviving at the expense of urban summer residents, reviving the village in the summer. In winter these days most villages are empty and uncomfortable. It's hard to live here in winter. Especially without gas.
Summer camp for cows. Now already closed.

There are 5-6 houses permanently living in the village, the rest are empty.
Here they live.

A disabled person, a former submariner, lives here. Alas, he is bedridden. The neighbors take care of him.

Patriotically.

This house will soon collapse on its own. Living out his days.

What beautiful Russian platbands on the windows.

Yearning. This house is doomed.

The younger generation has long since left. And when the last grandmother dies in this village, the final administrative action will inevitably follow - deletion from the list of settlements "due to the lack of residents."

The village has two wells. Here is one of them.
Just 20 meters to the water.

The phone works, though on the cards. Where to buy these cards? Are they on sale now? I'm sure no one has ever used it here.

Local residents.

The idea of ​​bringing roads, outdated power lines into proper condition, laying out gas, now does not even come to mind. “Unprofitable,” say those who manage budgets in rural areas.
Then comes the "individual death" of the village.

Here they live.

And they don't live here.

And here is the second well.

A neighbor brought a rabbit to another neighbor.

All residential houses look the same and sad, and some

Completely destroyed.

I wonder how old he is.

Just like a prison.

There are two residential buildings, the rest have already "died". That's why I didn't go there.
By the way, a fortuneteller lives there, so the road is “trampled”.

The local cemetery is visible in the distance.
The village has always been small and in a small cozy cemetery in the nearest forest they buried everyone nearby, without fences, like one family.

Unknown grave.

In old houses you can find such old things. This is an old stupa

And this is an old baby cradle.

There is a collective farm in the neighboring village of Kalinino.

There is also a local club. I remember the time when discos were held here and a lot of young people gathered. Now there is nothing there.

Residents of Kozychevo go to the neighboring village for groceries.
I've been to this store... a long time ago.

Sometimes you want to quit everything and move to live in a village like this. But not now, not now...

Konstantin Korovin

My life (compilation)

© A. Obradovic, compilation, 2011

© V. Pozhidaev, series design, 1996

© LLC Publishing Group Azbuka-Atticus, 2013

AZBUKA® publishing house

All rights reserved. No part of the electronic version of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, including posting on the Internet and corporate networks, for private and public use, without the written permission of the copyright owner.

© The electronic version of the book was prepared by LitRes ()

My life

I was born in Moscow in 1861, on November 23, on Rogozhskaya Street, in the house of my grandfather Mikhail Emelyanovich Korovin, a Moscow merchant of the first guild. My great-grandfather, Emelyan Vasilyevich, was from the Vladimir province, Pokrovsky district, the village of Danilov, which stood on the Vladimir highway. There were no railroads then, and these peasants were coachmen. It was said - "they drove the coachman", and they were not serfs.

When my great-grandfather was born, then, according to custom, villages and villages located along the Vladimir tract, at the birth of a child, the father went out onto the road and the first one who was driven into exile along this road, Vladimirka, asked for a name. This name was given to the born child. As if they did it for happiness - such was a sign. They named the one born with the name of a criminal, that is, an unfortunate one. That was the custom.

When my great-grandfather was born, along Vladimirka they were transporting “Emelka Pugachev” in a cage with a large convoy, and my great-grandfather was named Yemelyan. The son of a coachman, Emelyan Vasilievich was later the manager of the estate of Count Bestuzhev-Ryumin, a Decembrist executed by Nicholas I. Countess Ryumin, deprived of the rights of the nobility, after the execution of her husband gave birth to a son and died in childbirth, and son Mikhail was adopted by the manager of Count Ryumin, Emelyan Vasilyevich. But he also had another son, also Mikhail, who was my grandfather. It was said that my grandfather's great wealth came to him from Count Ryumin.

My grandfather, Mikhail Emelyanovich, was of enormous stature, very handsome, and he was almost a sazhen in height. And my grandfather lived to 93 years.

I remember my grandfather's beautiful house on Rogozhskaya street. Huge mansion with a large yard; at the back of the house there was a huge garden that opened onto another street, into Durnovsky Lane. And the neighboring small wooden houses stood in spacious yards, the residents in the houses were coachmen. And in the yards there were stables and carriages of various styles, dormes, carriages, in which passengers were taken from Moscow along the roads rented from the government by the grandfather, along which he drove the coach from Moscow to Yaroslavl and Nizhny Novgorod.

I remember a large hall in the Empire style, where at the top there were balconies and round niches that housed musicians playing at dinner parties. I remember these dinners with dignitaries, elegant women in crinolines, military men in orders. I remember a tall grandfather, dressed in a long frock coat, with medals around his neck. He was already a gray-haired old man. My grandfather loved music, and it used to be that one grandfather was sitting in a large hall, and a quartet was playing upstairs, and grandfather would only allow me to sit next to him. And when the music played, the grandfather was thoughtful and, listening to the music, wept, wiping his tears with a large handkerchief, which he took out of the pocket of his dressing gown. I sat quietly next to my grandfather and thought: "Grandfather is crying, so, then, it is necessary."

My father, Alexei Mikhailovich, was also tall, very handsome, always well dressed. And I remember he wore plaid trousers and a black tie that covered his neck high.

I rode with him in a carriage that looked like a guitar: my father sat astride this guitar, and I sat in front. My father held me when we drove. Our horse was white, it was called Smetanka, and I fed it with sugar from the palm of my hand.

I remember an evening in the summer when coachmen sang songs in the yard nearby. I liked it when the coachmen sang, and I sat with my brother Sergei and my mother on the porch, with my nanny Tanya, and listened to their songs, sometimes dull, sometimes dashing, with a whistle. They sang about lyubushka, about robbers.

Girl girls once told me

Are there any fables from the old were ...

A birch stands near the forest of pines,

And under that birch, well done lies ...

Evening chime, evening chime

How many thoughts he brings

About the fatherland, about the native land ...

Not one path in the field ran wide ...

I remember well when late evening came and the sky was covered with darkness of night, a large red comet, half the size of the moon, appeared over the garden. She had a long tail, bent down, which radiated with luminous sparks. She was red and seemed to be breathing. The comet was terrible. They said she was going to war. I loved to look at her and every evening I waited, went to look at the courtyard from the porch. And he loved to listen to what they say about this comet. And I wanted to know what it is and where it came from to scare everyone and why it is.

Through the large windows of the house, I saw how sometimes, drawn by four horses, a terrible cart, high, with wooden wheels, rode along Rogozhskaya Street. Scaffold. And upstairs sat two people in gray prisoner's robes, with their hands tied back. They were carrying prisoners. On the chest of each hung a large black board tied around the neck, on which was written in white: Thief is a killer. My father sent with a janitor or a coachman to hand over bagels or rolls to the unfortunate. This was probably done in such a way out of mercy to the suffering. The convoy soldiers put these gifts in a bag.

They drank tea in the gazebo of the garden in summer. The guests came. My father often visited his friends: Dr. Ploskovitsky, investigator Polyakov and still a young man Latyshev, artist Lev Lvovich Kamenev and artist Illarion Mikhailovich Pryanishnikov, a very young man whom I loved very much, as he arranged for me in the hall, overturning the table and covering it tablecloths, the ship "Frigate" Pallas "". And I climbed up there and rode in my imagination across the sea, to the Cape of Good Hope. I liked it very much.

I also liked to watch when my mother had boxes of different paints on the table. Such pretty boxes and printing inks, multicolored. And she, spreading them on a plate, with a brush drew such pretty pictures in the album - winter, the sea - such that I flew somewhere to paradise. My father also drew with a pencil. Very good, everyone said - both Kamenev and Pryanishnikov. But I liked the way my mother painted more.

My grandfather Mikhail Emelyanovich was ill. He sat by the window in the summer, and his legs were covered with a fur blanket. My brother Sergei and I also sat with him. He loved us very much and combed me with a comb. When a peddler was walking along Rogozhskaya Street, the grandfather would call him by the hand, and the peddler would come. He bought everything: gingerbread, nuts, oranges, apples, fresh fish. And from the women, who carried large white boxes with toys and laid them out in front of us, putting them on the floor, grandfather also bought everything. It was a joy for us. Ofeni didn't have anything! And hares with a drum, and blacksmiths, bears, horses, cows that lowed, and dolls that closed their eyes, a miller and a mill. There were toys with music. We then broke them with my brother - so we wanted to know what was inside them.

My sister Sonya fell ill with whooping cough, and my mother took me to nanny Tanya. That's where it was good ... She was completely different. Small wooden house. I was sick in bed. Log walls and ceiling, icons, lamps. Tanya is near me and her sister. Remarkable, kind ... The garden is visible through the window in winter in hoarfrost. The bed is heating up. Everything is as simple as it should be. Dr. Ploskovitsky arrives. I was always glad to see him. He prescribes me drugs: pills in such pretty boxes, with pictures. Such pictures that no one will draw like that, I thought. Mother often came too. In a hat and crinoline, elegant. She brought me grapes, oranges. But she forbade me to give me a lot to eat and she herself brought only jelly soup, granular caviar. The doctor didn't tell me to feed because I had a high fever.

But when my mother left, my nanny Tanya said:

- So the killer whale (it's me - killer whale) will be killed.

And they gave me a roasted pig, a goose, cucumbers to eat, and they also brought a long candy from the pharmacy, it was called “girl's skin”, for coughing. And I ate it all. And "girl's skin" from coughing without counting. Only Tanya didn’t tell me to tell my mother that they were feeding me a piglet, and not a gugu about “maiden skin”. And I didn't say anything. I believed Tanya and was afraid, as her sister Masha said, that if I didn’t eat, they would completely kill me. I didn't like it.

And on the boxes - pictures ... There are mountains, fir trees, arbors. Tanya told me that such plants grow not far from Moscow. And I thought: as soon as I recover, I will go there to live. There is the Cape of Good Hope. How many times have I asked my father to go. No, no luck. I'll go myself - wait. And Tanya says that the Cape of Good Hope is not far, behind the Intercession Monastery.

But suddenly the mother arrived, not in her right mind. Crying out loud. It turned out that Sonia's sister had died.

- What is it: how did she die, why? ..

And I roared. I didn't understand how it could be. What is it: dead. So pretty, little Sonya died. It is not necessary. And I thought and got sad. But when Tanya told me that she now has wings and she flies with angels, I felt better.

When summer came, I somehow arranged with my cousin, Varya Vyazemskaya, to go to the Cape of Good Hope, and we went out through the gate and walked down the street. We go, we see - a large white wall, trees, and behind the wall below the river. Then back to the street. Shop with fruit. Came in and asked for candy. They gave us, asked whose we were. We said and moved on. Some kind of market. There are ducks, chickens, piglets, fish, shopkeepers. Suddenly some fat woman looks at us and says:

- Why are you alone?

I told her about the Cape of Good Hope, and she took us by the hands and said:

- Let's go.

And led us to some dirty yard. She took me to the porch. Her house is so bad, dirty. She seated us at the table and placed a large cardboard box in front of us, where there were threads and beads. I really liked the beads. She brought other women, everyone was looking at us. She gave us bread for tea. The windows were already dark. Then she dressed us in warm knitted shawls, took me and my sister Varya out into the street, called a cab, put us in and went with us. We arrived at a big house, dirty, scary, a tower-tower, and a man walks upstairs - a soldier. Very scary. The sister cried. We went up the stone stairs to this house. There are some scary people out there. Soldiers with guns, with sabers, shout, swear. A man is sitting at the table. Seeing us, he left the table and said:

- Here they are.

I was afraid. And a man with a saber - wonderful, like a woman - led us outside, and the woman also went. We put them in cabs and drove off.

“Look at the arrows, gone ... non-rumors,” I heard the man with the saber say to the woman.

They brought us home. Father and mother, many people in the house, Dr. Ploskovitsky, Pryanishnikov, many strangers. Here are my aunts, the Zanegins, the Ostapovs - everyone is glad to see us.

- Where did you go, where were you? ..

A man with a saber drank from a glass. The woman who found us was talking a lot. When a man with a saber left, I asked my father to leave him and asked him to give me a saber, well, at least take it out and look. Oh, I would like to have such a saber! But he didn't give it to me and laughed. I heard that there was a lot of talk around in excitement and everything about us.

- Well, did you see, Kostya, the Cape of Good Hope? my father asked me.

- Saw. Only it's across the river, there. I haven't gotten there yet, I said.

I remember everyone was laughing.

One winter, my grandfather took me with him. We drove past the Kremlin, across the bridge of the river, and drove up to the big gate. There were tall buildings. We dismounted from the sleigh and went into the yard. There were stone barns with large iron doors. Grandfather took my hand, and we went down the stone steps to the basement. We entered the iron door, and I saw a stone hall with vaults. Lamps hung, and Tatars in fur coats in yarmulkes stood aside. In their hands were suitcases in patterns made of carpet fabric. Some other people my grandfather knew: Kokorev, Chizhov, Mamontov. They were wearing hats and warm good coats with fur collars. Grandfather greeted them. They looked at me and said: "Grandson."

In the middle of the cellar stood a large chest, yellow, iron, bound, with buttons. The chest is shiny and patterned. One of them inserted the key into the lock and opened the lid. When the lid was lifted, the chest made sounds like music. From it Kokorev took out thick bundles of paper money tied with twine, and threw these bundles into the bags of suitable Tatars. When the bag of one Tatar was filled, another came up and they also put it to him. And Mamontov wrote on the wall with chalk, saying: “Million four hundred thousand. Two million one hundred and forty thousand. Six hundred thousand One million three hundred thousand. The Tatars went outside with bags, and then they locked everything up - both the chest and the doors, and we left. Grandfather got into the sleigh with Mamontov and put me on my knees. Mamontov said to dear grandfather, pointing to me:

- Boy Alexei. Do you love him, Mikhail Emelyanovich ...

The grandfather laughed and said:

- Yes, how not to love them ... And who, what will happen next - who knows. Life goes on, everything changes. He's nothing boy. He loves music... He listens, he doesn't get bored. You ask him where the Cape of Good Hope is. He once left the house to look for him, a cape. What happened to the mother, to the father. The entire police searched in Moscow. Found ... The boy is inquisitive.

They were talking about me.

We arrived at the big white house. We went up the stairs to the great hall. All tables. People sit at tables, many in white shirts. Meals are served. And we sat down at the table. They served pancakes and caviar in beetroots. They put me a pancake and caviar from beetroot with a spoon. And I look - one in a white shirt carries a large shaft. I inserted it into such a strange thing, like a chest of drawers in glasses, and turned the handle on the side. This thing played. And behind the glass something was spinning. Very interesting. And I went to look.

Then grandfather, dear kind grandfather, took and died. Tanya told me in the morning. I was surprised and thought: why is this? And I saw in the hall a large coffin-deck, there is a grandfather, pale, his eyes are closed. Around the candles, fumes, smoke. And everyone sings. Many, many in golden caftans. So bad, what is it? So bad... So sorry for my grandfather... And we didn't sleep all night. And then they took him out into the yard and everyone sang. To the people, to the people... what a horror. And everyone cried, and I ... Grandfather was taken down the street. I went with my father and mother to pick up my grandfather. They took him away ... We arrived at the church, sang again and then lowered the grandfather into the pit, buried him. It's impossible... And I couldn't understand what it was. No grandfather. That's sad. I cried all the time, and my father cried, and my brother Sergey, and my mother, and my aunts, and my nanny Tanya. I asked the clerk Echkin, seeing him in the garden, why my grandfather died. And he says:

- God took it.

I think: like this thing ... I also took Sister Sonya. Why does he need to? .. And I really thought about it. And when he left the garden, from the porch he saw a huge bright radiance in the sky - a cross. I screamed. My mother came out to me. I speak:

- Look…

The cross melted.

Do you see the cross...

Mother took me home. This is the only vision I remember in my life. It never happened again.

As a boy of six, I did not know and did not understand what it meant that my father was a student and graduated from Moscow University. This I found out later. They probably told me. But I remember how young people came to my father, and even not quite young, but older than my father - all of these were his comrades - students. They had breakfast in the summer in our garden pavilion and spent their time there merrily. Other friends of my father also gathered there, among them was Dr. Ploskovitsky, the forensic investigator Polyakov, Latyshev and Pryanishnikov. There, I heard they sang, and some fragments of these songs remained in my memory:

From dawn to dawn

Just light up the lights

A string of students

They stagger.

The students were special people. Dressed in a special way. With long hair, some in dark blouses and some in frock coats, all with big hair, thick sticks in their hands, with necks twisted with dark ties. They were not like our other acquaintances and my relatives. And my father dressed differently.

On the wall of the gazebo was written in chalk:

Two-headed - emblem, basis

All murderers, idiots, thieves.

Or they sang. All some special songs, completely different from the songs of the coachmen.

The state is crying

All the people are crying

Comes to our kingdom

Constantine is a freak.

But the King of the Universe,

God of higher powers

blessed king

He handed over the letter.

Manifesto reading,

The Creator took pity.

Gave us Nicholas...

When he passed into eternity,

Our unforgettable Nicholas, -

Appeared to Peter the Apostle,

So that he opens the door to paradise.

"Who are you?" the key-keeper asked him.

"Like who? Famous Russian Tsar!

"You are the king, so wait a little,

You know the road to heaven is hard

Also, the gates of heaven

Narrows, you see - tightness.

“Yes, what is all this rabble?

Kings or common people?

"You didn't recognize yours! After all, these are Russians

Your soulless nobles,

And these are free peasants,

They all went around the world

And the poor came to us in paradise.

Then Nicholas thought:

"So that's how they reach heaven!"

And he writes to his son: “Dear Sasha!

Our lot in heaven is bad.

If you love your subjects -

Wealth will only destroy them,

And if you want to enter paradise -

So let them all in the world!”

It was difficult for me to overcome these special moods and thoughts of these people, students. They seemed special to me, somehow different. Their appearance, long disputes, gait and speech itself were different and impressed me with a strange restlessness. I saw how my father's manager, who came to my father's office every morning, reported something for a long time, counted on accounts, brought and took away some papers - this Echkin looked angrily at his father's acquaintances, students. Students, peers of the father, brought books to the father, read together. My father also had many books and read a lot. The students argued in the evenings when I had gone to bed. I heard that they often spoke about serfdom, I heard the words "constitution", "freedom", "tyranny" ...

One day a tall, dark-haired man with a parting in the middle came to his father. It was a university professor, to whom his father showed a small portrait, also of some brunette. The professor looked at him. This portrait was with my grandfather, Mikhail Emelyanovich, in his bedroom, and hung on the wall in front of the bed. I asked Echkin what kind of portrait this was and who this uncle was. Echkin answered me that this was a degraded count.

He will be related to you. And what about the students - God bless them ... Only money is pulled from your father. Shame, - said Echkin.

I never saw my grandfather with them, or Lev Kamenev, or my aunts, or the Volkovs, or the Ostapovs. And my grandmother on my mother's side rarely visited us, and the Alekseevs never spoke or were with these students. I saw my father take money out of his wallet and give it to people with long hair. They had some kind of sharp eyes, they looked sternly. They were poorly dressed, dirty, high boots, uncleaned, hair not cut.

“These are all students,” Nanny Tanya told me, sighing.

My father had a large library and often brought books. I liked to look at them, where there were pictures. He talked a lot about the book he had read with his acquaintances and argued a lot.

One day my father was excitedly telling my mother about Latyshev, who had stopped visiting us. I liked him. He was such a quiet, gentle man. But I heard from the conversation that he was arrested and exiled to Siberia. My father went to the arrest house, and one day he took me with him. And we came to some huge building. Large corridors. And there were soldiers dressed in black, and they held their sabers up at their shoulders. It was something terrible. Then we were led through a narrow corridor, and I saw a long lattice, thick iron bars. And there behind bars was Latyshev. His father handed him a package of food - there was bread and ham - and spoke to him through the bars. Then we went back and left this terrible house. It was especially unpleasant for me that through the bars a lot of people were shouting and talking to people who were behind it. This greatly influenced me, and I asked my mother, nanny Tanya, grandmother, but no one answered me anything. My father answered me once that Latyshev was not to blame and it was all in vain.

“You don't understand,” he told me.

I saw that my father was upset, and I remember that he told my mother that Echkin could not be trusted.

Everyone is deceiving me. I don't want to sue, I hate it. They have no honor.

The mother was also upset. She went to her mother, Ekaterina Ivanovna, and took me and my brother with her. Grandma Ekaterina Ivanovna's house was so good. Carpeted rooms, flowers by the windows in baskets, pot-bellied chests of drawers made of mahogany, porcelain slides, gold vases under glass, with flowers. Everything is so beautiful. Paintings… The cups inside are golden. Delicious Chinese apple jam. Such a garden behind a green fence. These Chinese apples grew there. The house outside is green with shutters. Grandmother is tall, in a lace cape, in a black silk dress. I remember how my aunts, the Sushkins and Ostapovs, beautiful, in magnificent crinolines, and my mother played big golden harps. There were a lot of visitors. All the others, somehow different from these students and Dr. Ploskovitsky. All smart guests. And at the table the dishes were served by servants in gloves, and the women's hats were large with elegant ribbons. And they drove away from the entrance in carriages.

In the yard in our house, behind the well by the garden, there lived a dog in a dog kennel - such a small house, and in it a round loophole. There lived a big shaggy dog. And she was tied with a chain. This is what I liked. And the dog is so good, her name was Druzhok. At every dinner I left bones for her and begged for pieces of something, and then I took away and fed Druzhok. And let him off the chain. He let him into the garden and the gazebo. My friend loved me and at the meeting put his paws on my shoulders, which made me almost fall. He licked me right in the face with his tongue. My friend also loved my brother Seryozha. Druzhok always sat with us on the porch and laid his head on my knees. But as soon as someone went into the gate - Druzhok broke headlong, in anger rushed at the incoming person and barked so that it was impossible to frighten everyone.

Druzhok was cold in winter. I quietly, without telling anyone, led him through the kitchen to my room, upstairs. And he slept next to my bed. But I was forbidden; no matter how I asked my father, mother - nothing came of it. They said: you can't. I told this to my friend. But I still managed to take Druzhok to my room and hid him under the bed.

My friend was very shaggy and big. And one summer my brother Seryozha and I decided to cut his hair. And they cut it off so that they made a lion out of it: they cut it off to half. My friend came out a real lion, and they began to fear him even more. The baker who came in the morning, who carried the bread, complained that it was impossible to walk, why Druzhok was being lowered: after all, a pure lion rushes. I remember my father laughing - he also loved dogs and all kinds of animals.

Once he bought a bear cub and sent it to Borisovo - not far from Moscow, near Tsaritsyn, across the Moscow River. There was a small estate of my grandmother, there was a summer cottage where we lived in the summer. Bear cub Verka - why was it called that? - soon grew out of me and was remarkably kind. She played with me and my brother in a wooden ball on the meadow in front of the dacha. Somersaulted, and we are with her. And at night she slept with us and somehow especially gurgled, with some special sound that seemed to come from afar. She was very affectionate, and it seems to me that she thought of us, that we were cubs. All day and in the evening we played with her near the dacha. They played hide-and-seek, rolled head over heels down the hill near the forest. By autumn, Verka had grown taller than me, and one day my brother and I went to Tsaritsyn with her. And there she climbed a huge pine tree. Some summer residents, seeing a bear, got excited. And Verka, no matter how much I called her, did not come from the pine. Some people, bosses, came with a gun and wanted to shoot her. I burst into tears, begged not to kill Verka, called her in despair, and she climbed down from the pine tree. My brother and I took her home, to our place, and the bosses also came to us and forbade us to keep the bear.

I remember it was my grief. I hugged Verka and wept hotly. And Verka murmured and licked my face. It is strange that Verka never got angry. But when they nailed her into a box to take her to Moscow on a cart, Verka roared like a terrible beast, and her eyes were small, bestial and evil. Verka was brought to Moscow to a house and placed in a large greenhouse in the garden. But then Druzhok completely went crazy: he barked and howled incessantly. “How can I reconcile this Druzhka with Verka,” I thought. But when my brother and I took Druzhka and led him into the garden to the greenhouse where Verka was, Verka, seeing Druzhok, was desperately frightened, rushed up on the long brick stove of the greenhouse, knocked down the pots of flowers and jumped on the window. She was beside herself. Druzhok, seeing Verka, desperately howled and squealed, throwing himself at our feet. “This is the story,” I thought. “Why are they afraid of each other?” And no matter how hard my brother and I tried to calm Verka and Druzhka, nothing came of it. Druzhok rushed to the door to get away from Verka. It was clear that they did not like each other. Verka was almost twice as big as Druzhok, but she was afraid of the dog. And this went on all the time. My friend was worried that a bear lives in the garden in the greenhouse.

One fine day, in the morning, a police officer came to my father and told him that he had received an order to arrest the bear and send it to the kennel by order of the governor. It was a desperate day for me. I came to the greenhouse, hugged, stroked Verka, kissed her muzzle and wept bitterly. Verka stared intently with animal eyes. Something thought and was worried. And in the evening the soldiers came, tied her legs, her face and took her away.

I cried all night and did not go to the garden. I was afraid to look at the greenhouse, in which Verka was no longer there.

When I went with my mother to my grandmother, I told her my grief. She, reassuring me, said: "Kostya, people are evil, people are very evil." And it seemed to me, really, that people must be evil. They lead other people down the street with sabers drawn. Those go so unhappy. And I also told my grandmother. But she told me that these unfortunate people, who are led by escorts, are also very evil people and not good. I thought about it and wondered what it means and why it is. Why are they evil. This is the first thing I heard about evil people, somehow overshadowed and worried me. Is it really where all this music is, is there really such people there. It cannot be that there, behind this garden, where the sun goes down and there is such a beautiful evening, where pink clouds swirl in a beautiful sky, where the Cape of Good Hope is, there were evil people. After all, this is stupid and disgusting. It can't be like that, a person can't be angry there. There are no these people who say “damn it”, “go to hell”, those who say this are always near my father. No, they are not there, and they will not be allowed there. You can't say "damn you" there. There's music and pink clouds.

I really liked my grandmother. There was a completely different, different mood. The grandmother herself and the guests were friendly when they spoke, looked into each other's eyes, spoke quietly, there were no such sharp disputes - the grandmother somehow agreed. So simple. And in our house, those around my father always somehow disagreed with nothing. They shouted: “not that”, “nonsense”, “soft-boiled eggs”. Often I heard the word "damn": "well, to hell with him", "damn it at all." Nobody cursed at Grandma's. Then grandmother had this music when they played the harps; listened quietly; the guests were well-dressed, large crinolines, the women's hair was magnificent, and they smelled of perfume. They walked without clattering with their high boots; leaving, everyone said goodbye to me. At dinner, grandma didn't have kvass and didn't beat glasses of wine, didn't slurp, didn't sit leaning on the table with her elbows. Then it was somehow clean, tidied up. There were no books or newspapers lying around. The music of the harps is so beautiful, and it seemed to me that this music was like the blue sky, the evening clouds that walked over the garden, the branches of the trees that descended to the fence, where the dawn rose pink in the evening, and there behind this garden, far away, somewhere there is a Cape of Good Hope. I felt with my grandmother that there is a Cape of Good Hope. We didn't have that feeling. Something was rude, and it seemed to me that everyone was scolding someone, something was wrong, someone was to blame ... There was no this gratifying, distant, beautiful, which is there, which will come, desired, kind. And when I came home, I was sad. Students will come, they will shout: “What is God, where is he, God?” And some student will say: “I don't believe in God…” And his eyes are cloudy, angry, dull. And he's rude. And I feel like a stranger. I'm nothing. No one will come up, will not say to me: "Hello." And they will tell my grandmother, they will ask: “What are you learning?” Show a picture book. When my mother was painting, I felt close to my mother, just like my grandmother. And in the pictures that my mother drew, it seemed to me that she was drawing all this where the Cape of Good Hope is. When I stay overnight with my grandmother, my grandmother tells me to read prayers on my knees in bed and pray to God, and after that I go to bed. At home, they don't tell me anything. They will say: "Go to bed" - and nothing more.

My aunts, who visit our grandfather's house in Rogozhskaya, are also different - fat, with black eyes. And their daughters, young, thin, pale, timid, are afraid to say, embarrassed. “What different people,” I thought. “Why is that?”

Aunt Alexeyeva came and sat in an armchair in the hall and wept bitterly, wiping her tears with a lace handkerchief. She said in tears that Annushka poured nasturtiums - watering and watering. I thought: “What a wonderful aunt. What are you crying about?"

My other aunt, I remember, said about my mother: “Beloruchka. She still does not know where the water is poured into the samovar and where the coals are placed. And I asked my mother where the coals are put in the samovar. Mother looked at me with surprise and said: "Let's go, Kostya." She took me to the corridor and showed me the garden through the window.

Winter. The garden was covered in frost. I looked: indeed, it was so good - everything is white, fluffy. Something native, fresh and clean. Winter.

And then my mother painted this winter. But it didn't. There were patterns of branches covered in snow. It is very difficult.

“Yes,” my mother agreed with me, “these patterns are difficult to make.

Then I also began to draw, and nothing came of it.

After the death of my grandfather in the house on Rogozhskaya Street, everything gradually changed. There are few coachmen left. Their songs were no longer heard in the evening, and the stables were empty. There were huge dormes covered with dust; sad and empty were the yards of the coachmen. Bailiff Echkin was not to be seen in our house. My father was concerned. Many people came to the house. I remember how my father paid them a lot of money and some long white pieces of paper, bills, he folded together in the evening, tied with twine and put them in a chest, locking them. Somehow he left. In the front door of the porch, my mother saw him off. Father looked thoughtfully at the window, covered with hoarfrost. Father held the key in his hands and, thinking, put the key to the glass. There formed the shape of a key. He moved it to a new place and said to his mother:

- I'm ruined ... This house will be sold.

The Nikolaevskaya railway had already passed and was completed to Trinity-Sergius, and a road was also built to Nizhny Novgorod. So the pit was completed. It was rare for anyone to ride horses along these roads: there was no need for a yamshchina ... So, my father said: “I am ruined,” because the matter was over. The Trinity Railway was built by Mamontov and Chizhov, friends of my grandfather. Soon my mother and I moved to my grandmother, Ekaterina Ivanovna Volkova. I really liked my grandmother's, and then from there we moved to Dolgorukovskaya Street, to the mansion of the manufacturer Zbuk. It seems - I do not remember well - my father was a magistrate. There was a large yard near Zbuk's house and a large garden with fences, and then there were clearings. Moscow and Sushchevo were not yet well rebuilt. Factory chimneys were visible in the distance, and I remember how, on holidays, workers came out to these clearings, first young, then older, shouting to each other: “come out”, “give back ours” - and fought with each other. It was called the "wall". Until the evening, a cry was heard: these were fighting games. I have seen these fights many times.

The furniture in the Zbuk mansion was transported from our house in Rogozh, which had already been sold. But this life in Moscow was short-lived.

In the summer, with my father and mother, I quite often went near Moscow, to Petrovsky Park, to the dacha to my aunt Alekseeva. She was a fat woman, with a red face and dark eyes. The dacha was smart, painted yellow, as was the fence. The dacha was in carved trinkets; in front of the terrace there was a curtain of flowers, and in the middle a painted iron crane: with its nose up, it started up a fountain. And some two bright, bright silver balls on the pillars, in which the garden was reflected. Paths covered with yellow sand, with a curb - it all looked like a biscuit cake. It was good at my aunt's dacha, elegant, but for some reason I didn't like it. When I had to turn off the Petrovsky highway into the alley of the park, the highway seemed like a distant blue distance, and I wanted to go not to my aunt's dacha, but there, to that distant blue distance. And I thought: there must be a Cape of Good Hope ...

And at the aunt in the country everything is painted, even the fire barrel is also yellow. I wanted to see a completely different thing: somewhere there are forests, mysterious valleys ... And there, in the forest, there is a hut - I would go there and live alone in this hut. I would take my dog ​​Druzhka with me there, I would live with him; there is a small window, a dense forest - I would have caught a deer, I would have milked it, and a wild cow ... Only one thing: she must butt heads. I would saw off her horns, we would live together. My father has a fishing rod - I would take it with me, put meat on the hook and throw it out of the window at night. After all, there are wolves, a wolf would come: the meat is caught. I would drag him to the window and say: “What, got caught? Now you won’t leave ... There’s nothing to show your teeth, give up, live with me. He's not a fool: if he understood, they would live together. And what about my aunt ... Well, ice cream, well, the dacha - after all, this is nonsense, wherever you go - a fence, yellow paths, nonsense. And I would like to go to a dense forest, to a hut ... That's what I wanted.

Returning from my aunt, I said to my father:

How I would like to go into the dense forest. Only my gun, of course, is not real, it shoots peas, it's nonsense. Buy me a real gun, please, I'll hunt.

My father listened to me, and then one morning I see a real gun lying on the table near me. A small one-liner. The trigger is new. I grabbed - how it smells, what kind of locks, some kind of trunks in stripes. I threw myself on my father's neck to thank him, and he says:

- Kostya, this is a real gun. And here is the box of pistons. Only I won’t give you gunpowder - it’s still early. Look, the trunk is Damascus.

All day I walked around the yard with a gun. Elder grows in the yard near the fence, the fence is old, in the cracks. And on the other side lives a friend - the boy Levushka. I showed him the gun, he did not understand anything. He has a wheelbarrow, he carries sand, a big heavy wheel - in a word, is nonsense. No, the gun is completely different.

I have already seen how I shot, running with Druzhok, and ducks, and geese, and a peacock, and a wolf ... Oh, how to leave for a dense forest. And here - this dusty yard, cellars, yellow stables, domes of the church - what to do?

I sleep with a gun and clean it twenty times a day. Father put a candle on the table and lit it, planted the piston, raised the cock, fired five steps into the candle - the candle went out. I shot three boxes of caps, put out a candle without a miss - everything is not right. You need gunpowder and a bullet.

- Wait, - said the father, - soon we will go to the village of Mytishchi, we will live there. There I will give you gunpowder and shot, you will shoot game.

I have been waiting for this happiness for a long time. Summer passed, winter, and then one fine day, when the birches had just blossomed, my father went with me by rail. What a beauty. What is seen through the window - forests, fields - everything is in the spring. And we arrived in Bolshie Mytishchi. There was a house on the edge - a big hut. It was shown to us by a woman and a boy, Ignatka, with her. How good it is in the hut: two wooden rooms, then a stove, a yard, two cows and a horse stand in the yard, a small dog, wonderful, barks all the time. And as you went out onto the porch, you see a big blue forest. Meadows sparkle in the sun. Forest - Elk Island, huge. That is as good as I have ever seen. The whole of Moscow is no good, such beauty ...

We moved there a week later. My father got a job somewhere in a factory nearby. But what is this Mytishchi? There is a river there - Yauza, and it goes from a large forest to Elk Island.

I made friends with the boys right away. My friend walked with me. At first I was afraid to go far, and beyond the river I could see the forest and the blue distance. That's where I'll go ... And I went. With me, Ignashka, Senka and Seryozhka are wonderful people, friends right away. Let's go hunting. My father showed me how to load a gun: I put very little gunpowder, I hung up some newspaper, made a circle and fired, and the shot fell into the circle. That is, this is not life, but paradise. River bank, grass, alder bushes. Now it is very small, shallow, then it turns into wide barrels, dark, of incredible depth. Fish splash on the surface. Further and further we go with my friends, - Look, - says Ignashka, - there, you see, ducks are swimming behind the bushes. It's wild.

Quietly we sneak in the bushes. Swamp. And close I went to the ducks. He took aim and fired at those who were closer. Ducks soared with a cry, a whole flock, and the duck I shot at lay on the surface and beat its wings. Ignashka quickly undressed and rushed into the water, swam with saplings to the duck. The friend was barking on the shore. Ignashka grabbed the wing with his teeth and returned with the duck. Came ashore - a big duck. The head is blue with a pink tint. It was a celebration. I walked on tiptoe with delight. And let's move on. The place became more swampy, it was difficult to walk, the ground shook. But in the river you can see the whole bottom, and I saw at the bushes, in the depths, big fish were walking and breathing through their mouths. God what fish. Here's how to catch them. But very deep. To the side was a huge pine forest into which we came. This is the Cape of Good Hope. Moss green. Ignashka and Seryoga gathered brushwood and lit a fire. Wet, we warmed ourselves around the fire. The duck lay around. What will the father say? And beyond the bend of the river, through the pines, the distance turned blue, and there was a large reach of the river. No, this is not the Cape of Good Hope, but it is where the blue distance is. Therefore, I will definitely go there ... there is a hut there, I will live there. Well, Moscow, that our Rogozhsky house with columns, that it stands in front of these barrels of water, in front of these flowers - purple sultans that stand by the alder ... And these green alders are reflected in the water, as in a mirror, and there is a blue sky, and above , in the distance, distant forests turn blue.

We must return home. My father said to me: "Go hunting," and my mother almost cried, saying: "Is it possible, he is still a boy." It's me. I shot the duck. Yes, I can now swim across this river whenever you want. What is she afraid of? He says: "He will go into the cachaura." Yes, I'll get out, I'm a hunter, I shot a duck.

And I walked home proudly. And over my shoulder I carried a weighted duck.

When he came home, there was a celebration. Father said: “Well done” - and kissed me, and mother said: “She will bring this nonsense to the point that it will get lost and disappear ...”

“Don’t you see,” my mother said to my father, “that he is looking for the Cape of Good Hope. Eh, - she said, - where is this cape ... Can't you see that Kostya will always look for this cape. It's impossible. He does not understand life as it is, he keeps wanting to go there, there. Is it possible. Look, he doesn't learn anything.

Every day I went hunting with my friends. Mainly, everything is to get away, to see new places, more and more new. And then one day we went far to the edge of a large forest. My comrades took a wicker basket with them, climbed into the river, put it up to the coastal bushes in the water, clapped their feet, as if driving fish out of the bushes, lifted the basket, and small fish came across there. But once a big fish splashed, and in the basket were two large dark burbots. It was a surprise. We took a pot that was for tea, made a fire and boiled burbots. There was an ear. “This is how one should live,” I thought. And Ignashka says to me:

- Look, you see, there is a small hut at the edge of the forest.

Indeed, when we approached, there was a small, empty hut with a door, and a small window on the side - with glass. We walked by the hut and then pushed the door. The door opened. There was no one there. Earth floor. The hut is low, so that an adult will reach the ceiling with his head. And to us - just right. Well, what a hut, beauty. At the top there is straw, a small brick stove. Now the fire has been lit. Amazing. Warm. Here is the Cape of Good Hope. This is where I'm going to live...

And before that we stoked the stove that it was unbearably hot in the hut. They opened the door, it was autumn time. It was already getting dark. Everything turned blue outside. There were dusk. The forest next to it was huge. Silence…

And suddenly it became scary. Somewhat lonely, forlorn. It is dark in the hut, and the whole month has come out on the side above the forest. I think: “My mother left for Moscow, she won’t worry. A little light - let's get out of here. It's very good here, in the hut. Well, just wonderful. As grasshoppers crackle, there is silence all around, tall grasses and a dark forest. Huge pine trees doze in the blue sky, on which the stars have already appeared. Everything freezes. A strange sound far away by the river, as if someone is blowing into a bottle: woo, woo ...

Ignashka says:

- It's a lumberjack. Nothing, we'll show him.

But something creepy ... The forest is getting dark. The trunks of the pines were illuminated mysteriously by the moon. The stove went out. We are afraid to go out for brushwood. The door was locked. The handle of the door was tied with belts from shirts to a crutch so that it was impossible to open the door, in case the forester would come. Baba Yaga is still there, it's such a disgusting thing.

We are silent and look out the small window. And suddenly we see: some huge horses with a white chest, huge heads are walking ... and they stop abruptly and look. These huge monsters, with horns like tree branches, were illuminated by the moon. They were so huge that we all froze in fear. And they were silent ... They walked smoothly on thin legs. Their backs were lowered down. There are eight of them.

“These are moose…” Ignashka said in a whisper.

We kept looking at them. And it never occurred to me to shoot at these monstrous beasts. Their eyes were large, and one elk came close to the window. His white chest shone like snow under the moon. Suddenly they immediately rushed and disappeared. We heard the crackle of their feet, as if cracking nuts. That's the thing...

We didn't sleep all night. And the light dawned a little, in the morning, we went home.

Life in the village was a pleasure for me, a boy. It seemed that there is not and cannot be better than my life. The whole day I am in the forest, in some sandy ravines, where tall grasses and huge firs have fallen in the river. There, with my comrades, I dug out a house for myself in a precipice, behind the branches of fallen fir trees. Which house! We reinforced the yellow walls of sand, the ceiling with sticks, laid branches of fir trees, made, like animals, a lair, a stove, laid a pipe, caught fish, took out a frying pan, fried this fish along with the gooseberries that were stolen in the garden. The dog was no longer alone, Druzhok, but four whole. The dogs are wonderful. They guarded us, and it seemed to the dogs, as well as to us, that this is the best life that can be, for which you can praise and thank the Creator. What a life! Bathing in the river; what kind of animals we saw, there are none. Pushkin said correctly: “There are traces of unseen animals on unknown paths ...” There was a badger, but we didn’t know what a badger was: some special big pig. The dogs chased him, and we ran, we wanted to catch him, teach him to live together. But they didn't catch him, he ran away. He went straight to the ground, disappeared. Wonderful life...

The summer has passed. The rains have come, autumn. The trees have fallen. But it was good in our house, which no one knew. They heated the stove - it was warm. But my father came one day with a teacher, a tall, thin man with a small beard. So dry and hard. He pointed to me: to go to school tomorrow. It was scary. School is something special. And what is scary is unknown, but scary is the unknown.

In Mytishchi, on the highway, at the very outpost, in a large stone house, on which an eagle, is written "Volost government". In the left half of the house was located, in a large room, a school.

The desks are black. The students are all there. Prayer at the icons. Smells like incense. The priest reads a prayer and sprinkles water. Let's go to the cross. We sit down at the desks.

The teacher gives us pens, pens, pencils, and notebooks, and a book - a wonderful book: "Native Word" with pictures.

We, already literate, are placed on one side of the desks, and the younger ones are on the other.

The first lesson starts with reading. Another teacher comes, ruddy, short, cheerful and kind, and orders to sing after him.

Oh you, will, my will,

You are my gold.

Will is a falcon in the sky,

Will is a bright dawn...

Didn't you come down with dew,

Am I not seeing in a dream?

Ile fervent prayer

Flew to the king.

Great song. First time I heard. No one was scolded here.

The second lesson was arithmetic. I had to go to the blackboard and write down the numbers, and how much it would be one with the other. Wrong.

And so the teaching began every day. There was nothing scary at school, but just wonderful. And so I liked the school.

The teacher, Sergei Ivanovich, came to my father to drink tea and dine. There was a serious man. And they all said tricky things to their father, and it seemed to me that his father told him everything wrong - he didn’t say that.

I remember once my father fell ill, lay in bed. He had a fever and a fever. And he gave me a ruble and said:

- Go, Kostya, to the station and get me medicine there, so I wrote a note, show it at the station.

I went to the station and showed the note to the gendarme. He said to me, going out on the porch:

“You see, boy, that little house over there, on the edge of the bridge. In this house lives a man who has medicine.

I came to this house. Has entered. Dirty in the house. Some are worth measures with oats, weights, scales, bags, bags, harness. Then the room: a table, everywhere everything is heaped, forced. A locker, chairs, and at the table, by a tallow candle, sits an old man in glasses, and there is a large book. I went up to him and gave him a note.

“Here,” I say, “I came for medicine.”

He read the note and said, "Wait." He went to the locker, opened it, took out a small scale and put white powder from the jar on the scales, and put small flat coppers in the other pan of the scales. He weighed it, wrapped it in a piece of paper and said:

- Twenty kopecks.

I gave a ruble. He went to the bed, and then I saw that he had a small yarmulke on the back of his head. For a long time he did something, took out change, and I looked at the book - not a Russian book. Some big black characters in a row. A wonderful book.

When he gave me the change and the medicine, I asked him, pointing with my finger:

- What is written here, what is this book?

He answered me:

“Boy, this is a book of wisdom. But where you hold your finger, it says: "Fear most of all the villain-fool."

“That's the thing,” I thought. And the dear thought: “What kind of fool is this?” And when I came to my father, I gave him the medicine, which he diluted in a glass of water, drank it and frowned - it is clear that the medicine is bitter - I told him that I got the medicine from such a strange old man who reads a book, not Russian, special, and told me that it says: "Fear most of all the foolish robber."

“Who, tell me,” I asked my father, “this fool and where he lives.” Is there any in Mytishchi?

“Kostya,” said the father. “He is such a fool, he lives everywhere… But this old man told you the truth, the worst thing is that he is a fool.”

I thought a lot about this. “Who is this?” I kept thinking. “The teacher is smart, Ignashka is smart, Seryozhka too.” So I could not find out who this fool was.

Remembering once at school during a break, I went up to the teacher and asked him, telling about the old man, who is the fool.

“If you know a lot, you will soon grow old,” the teacher told me. But only.

I remember I was learning a lesson. And the teacher was in another room visiting us, with my father. And they all argued. I remember my father used to say:

- It's good to love the people, to wish them well. It is commendable to wish to make him happy and prosperous. But this is not enough. Even a fool can wish for this...

I'm worried here.

“And a fool wants the good of the people,” continued the father, “hell is paved with good intentions.” It doesn't cost anything to wish. You have to be able to do it. This is the essence of life. And we have grief because everyone only desires, and from this they can perish, as one can perish from a fool.

It seemed even scarier to me. Who is this fool? A robber, I know, he stands by the forest or by the road, with a club and an axe. If you go, he will kill him, as they killed the cabman Peter. My comrades, Seryozhka and Ignashka, I went outside the village to look. He lay under the matting, stabbed to death. Stra-a-ashno. I did not sleep all night ... And I began to be afraid to walk outside the village in the evening. In the forest, to the river - nothing, he will not catch, I will run away. Yes, I have a gun, I'll gasp it myself. But the fool is worse. What is he.

I could not imagine, and again stuck to my father, asking:

Is he wearing a red hat?

- No, Kostya, - said the father, - they are different. These are those who want good things, but do not know how to do it well. And everything goes bad.

I was at a loss.

How strange, I went several times with my father to Moscow. I was with my grandmother, Ekaterina Ivanovna, I was in a big restaurant, and I did not like anything - neither Moscow, nor my grandmother, nor the restaurant. I didn’t like it as much as this wretched apartment in the village, like this dark night in winter, where dark huts sleep in a row, where there is a deaf, snowy, boring road, where the moonlight shines all year round and the dog howls in the street. What heartache, what charm in this longing, what fading, what beauty in this modest life, in black bread, occasionally in bagel, in a mug of kvass. What sadness in the hut when the lamp is shining, how I like Ignashka, Seryozhka, Kiryushka. What bosom friends. What charm in them, what friendship. How affectionate the dog is, how I like the countryside. What good aunts, strangers, undressed. The luxury of my well-dressed aunts, the Ostapovs, aunt Alekseeva, was already unpleasant to me, where are these crinolines, this exquisite table, where everyone sits so decorously. What a bore. How I like the will of the meadows, the forests, the poor huts. I like to heat the stove, cut brushwood and mow grass - I already knew how, and Uncle Peter praised me, telling me: "Well done, you are also mowing." And I drank, tired, kvass from a wooden ladle.

In Moscow, I will go out - stone pavements, strangers. And here I will go out - grass or snowdrifts, far away ... And my dear people, my own. Everyone is kind, no one scolds me. Everyone will pat on the head or laugh ... How strange. I will never go to the city. I will never be a student. They are all evil. They always scold everyone. No one here asks for money, and I only have a seven. And she lies with me all the time. And my father doesn't have much money. And how many there were. I remember how much my grandfather had money. The boxes were filled with gold. And now no. How good is Seryoga. There, a tailor-soldier sews a fur coat for him. So he told me ... How he got lost in the forest, how the robbers attacked and how he drowned them all ... That's how good it is to listen. And how he drove the goblin into the swamp and tore off his tail. So he begged to be let go. And he holds by the tail, and says "no", and says what a ransom. “Take me,” he says, “to Petersburg to the tsar.” He sat on his neck, straight to the king and came. The king says: "Well done soldier!" And he gave him a silver rupee. He showed the rupee… Big rupee, old one. Here are the people. Not fools.

There are many interesting things in the village. Wherever you go, everyone tells you things that don't happen. What to tell, what happens, as in Moscow. In Moscow they tell everything that happens. And here - no. Here now so, and in an hour - it is not known what will happen. This is, of course, a remote village. And how good log houses are. A new hut ... oh, it smells like pine. Would never leave. But my boots are thin, I need to fix the soles. They tell me that the boots of porridge are asking, turned around. He told his father that they were asking for twenty kopecks for the repair. Father ordered to give. “I,” he says, “will cry.” But a week is not given. I wear felt boots. Father brought prosphora - how delicious with tea. Prosphora should not be given to a dog; Malanya told me that if you give prosphora to a dog, you will die right away. And I wanted. It's good that he didn't.

In the countryside, it seemed to me that I was only now seeing winter, because what a winter it is in the city. Here everything is covered with huge snowdrifts. Elk Island sleeps, whitened in hoarfrost. Quiet, solemn and creepy. Quiet in the forest, not a sound, as if enchanted. The roads were covered with snow, and our house was covered with snow right up to the windows, you could hardly get out of the porch. Valenki sink in lush snow. In the morning the stove is heated at school, comrades will come. So fun, gratifying, something of my own, native at school, necessary and interesting, always new. And another world opens up. And the globe standing on the cabinet shows some other lands, seas. If only I could go… And I think: it must be good to go by ship on the sea. And what a sea, blue, blue, passes through the earth.

I did not notice that there was a big difference in my father's means, and I did not know at all that poverty had come. I didn't understand her. I enjoyed living in the countryside so much that I couldn't have imagined better. And I completely forgot my former, rich life: toys, smart people, and they seemed to me, when I arrived in Moscow, so strange, they say everything that is not necessary. And only there - life, in this small house ... Even in the midst of snow and terrible nights, where the wind howls and a blizzard sweeps, where grandfather Nikanor comes chilled and brings flour and butter. How good it is to heat stoves in winter, baked bread smells especially nice. In the evening, Ignashka and Seryoga will come, we are watching kubari, which we are chasing on the ice. And on a holiday we go to church, climb the bell tower and ring. This is wonderful... We drink tea at the priest's and eat prosphora. Let's go on a holiday to the hut to the neighbors, and there are habitual, girls and boys gather.

Girls sing:

Ah, mushroom mushrooms,

Dark forests.

Who will forget you

Who will not remember you.

Ivan and Marya swam in the river.

Where Ivan swam - the shore swayed,

Where Marya bathed - the grass spread out ...

The twist gave birth to me,

Grief nurtured

Troubles grew.

And I confessed, unfortunate,

With sadness,

With her, I will live forever.

Happiness is not to be seen in life...

There were both funny and sad ones. But all this was so full in the village, always an unexpected impression, some kind of simple, real, kind life. But one day my father left on business, and my mother was in Moscow. And I was left alone. In the evening, Ignashka sat with me, we made tea and talked about who would like to be who, and both of us thought that there was nothing better than to be peasants like everyone else in the village. Ignashka left late, and I went to bed. At night I was a little cowardly, without my father and mother. He locked the door on a hook, and also tied it with a sash from the handle to the crutch of the door frame. By night it is somehow creepy, and since we heard a lot about robbers, we were afraid. And I was afraid of robbers... And suddenly at night I woke up. And I hear the little dog Druzhok barking in the yard. And then I hear that in the passage behind the door something fell with a noise. The attached ladder, which went to the attic of the house, fell down. I jumped up and lit a candle, and in the corridor I saw a hand peeping through the door, which wanted to remove the sash from the crutch. "Where is the ax?" I searched - there is no ax. I rush to the stove, there is no stove. I wanted to swing an ax at my hand - there is no ax. A window in the kitchen, the second frame was inserted on nails, but not plastered over. I grabbed it with my hands, pulled out the nails, put up the frame, opened the window and, barefoot, in one shirt, jumped out the window and ran opposite across the road. A familiar gardener lived in the last hut, and his son Kostya was my friend. I pounded on the window with all my might. Kostya's mother came out and asked what had happened. When I ran into the hut, then, out of breath, chilled, I barely uttered:

- Robbers...

And my legs were dumb. Kostya's mother grabbed the snow and rubbed my feet. The frost was desperate. The gardener woke up and I told them. But the gardener did not go to wake anyone up and was afraid to leave the hut. The gardener's hut was away from the village, on the edge.

They put me on the stove to warm up and gave me tea. I fell asleep, and in the morning they brought me clothes. Ignashka came and said:

- There were thieves. There was laundry hanging in the attic - they stole everything, and you have a samovar.

It was somehow scary: they came, so the robbers. I returned to the house with Ignashka, climbed the stairs to the attic, with axes. There were sacks of oats, and one sack looked long and awkward to us. And Ignashka, looking at the bag, said to me quietly:

Look at the bag...

And we, like animals, crept up, hit the bag with axes, we thought that there were robbers. But the bran protruded from there... That's how we didn't decide the robber... But I was afraid to be in the house by evening and went to Ignashka. We sat with axes, both in fear.

When father and mother arrived, they learned that the linen that hung in the attic was all stolen and that more than one person was working. The terrible impression of a hand thrust through the door remained a memory for a lifetime. It was scary…

By spring, my mother and I went to my grandmother, Ekaterina Ivanovna, in Vyshny Volochek; my grandmother lived here not far from the house of her son, Ivan Volkov, who built a magnificent new house near the railway on the highway. My grandmother had a different house - in a quiet street of the city, a wooden house, a garden, fences. And behind them were meadows and the blue river Tvertsa. It was so free and good. Grandmother's was charming: the rooms were large, the house was warm, through the windows one could see neighboring wooden houses, gardens, and there was a road along the edges of which there were paths overgrown with spring green grass.

New life. New paradise. Pyotr Afanasyevich was invited as my teacher, broad-shouldered, with red hair and his whole face covered in freckles. The man is still young, but serious, strict and often said: "Well, prioritize ..."

So that it would not be boring to deal with serious sciences with me, he was treated to vodka. I've already taken fractions, history and grammar. Everything is very difficult to learn. And I strove more to get to the river, I met a wonderful person - the hunter Dubinin, who lived on the other side of the city, to the exit to the road that went to a large lake called a reservoir. The wonderful city of Vyshny Volochek, it seems to be standing in a swamp. The old stone houses near the canals are half buried in the ground. I liked it so much, and I started painting these houses. My grandmother bought me watercolors, and I painted everything in my free time. He drew a picture of Dubinin - hunting and traveled with Dubinin in a boat on a large lake-reservoir. What a beauty! Far away, on the other side, on the very horizon, lie the sands, and then the forests. I attached fishing rods, bought fishing lines, and I got fish that I brought home. Here I learned to catch burbot, ide, pike. This is amazing. Since my desire was, of course, to become a sailor, then, having received the program of the navigational school, I worked hard with Pyotr Afanasyevich. And Pyotr Afanasyevich told my mother that “it’s too early for him, he can’t overcome it, he needs algebra, he needs to study for two years.”

I imagined myself in a sea shirt, generally on ships. Mother did not interfere with my desires. But everyone watched and encouraged me when I draw. And I saw that my mother likes that I draw. She even carried paints and paper with me in a folder and sat beside me, sometimes saying:

– It’s lighter there, you put paints very thickly…

And sometimes she corrected my drawing. And she, too, did not work out as in nature, but more and more like a different place. Very good, but there was no such place.

In the summer I always went to Dubinin and went hunting with him. I bathed in the river, got wet in the rain, and this life of a hunter did what I soon grew up to be strong and hardy already at the age of twelfth. Sometimes Dubinin and I walked thirty miles a day. In what places we have not been, what forests, rivers, rivers, valleys! And when shooting game, Dubinin sometimes shared with me, since my single-barrel gun did not always help me out. My rifle was bad. I couldn't shoot as far as Dubinin. Most of all, I felt sorry for the dog Druzhka, whom I left in Mytishchi. I saw him in a dream and sent Ignashka a paper ruble in a letter, which I begged from my grandmother. Ignashka replied that he had received the ruble, but Druzhok had died. It was hard for me to bear the grief. I could not get a new dog, because my grandmother was very clean and did not allow a dog to be kept in the house.

I remember a roommate, a young man who had just married, an employee on the railroad, all played the guitar and sang:

Chuvil, my chuvil,

Chuvil-navil, my chuvil,

Chuvil-navil, wil-wil-wil,

Another miracle, miracle

Miracle - my homeland ...

I told him once, sitting with him downstairs, on a bench near the house, that he was singing nonsense. He was terribly offended by me and complained to his grandmother. His wife was a very beautiful and sweet young woman. And she asked me to draw her. It was difficult for me to draw it, somehow it didn’t work out. The landscape seemed easier to me, but the face is difficult.

“It doesn’t look like,” said the husband, “you will never be an artist.

I tried very hard to make it look like, and finally she became like.

My brother Sergei arrived, who had already entered the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. And he painted sketches from nature. It seemed to me that he writes very well, but I did not agree with the color. In nature, it is brighter and fresher, which is what I told him. In the autumn he took my sketches and a portrait of this woman. Having shown my work at the School, I wrote a letter to my mother that they would accept Kostya without an exam, because professors Savrasov and Perov really liked the work, and advises me to seriously take up painting, and sent wonderful things from Moscow: paints in boxes, brushes, a palette, an old box – it was all wonderful and intoxicating. What colors, they smelled so good that I was excited and did not sleep all night. And in the morning I took the canvas in a box, paints, brushes and went to Dubinin, saying that I would not come for three days - he called Dubinin on the other side of the lake, where the reeds and sands, where the old canoe on the sand, where the cuckoo screams at night. I didn’t know what a cuckoo was, but I heard it screaming. And there, only there, you can paint a picture.

For two days I lived on this shore. I wrote a black boat, white sand, reflections - everything is so difficult. A dream, poetry called me there.

The environment, nature, contemplation of it was the most essential thing in my childhood. Nature captured all of me, gave me the mood, as if her changes were merged with my soul. Thunderstorm, gloomy bad weather, dusk, stormy nights - everything impressed me ... It was the most important thing for my life and feelings. The hunter Dubinin must have been dear to me because he taught me to be around himself, to these walks in the swamps, to the forests, to the boat on the lake, to overnight stays in haystacks, through remote villages ... And other people - my uncle, his environment, grandmother and teacher Peter Afanasyevich - all this was somehow not right. Their conversations, their worries seemed frivolous to me. Unnecessary. My life, the life of a boy, a hunter, and already my paints and drawing seemed to me the most important and most serious in life. The rest is all kind of nonsense. Not that. Cheap and uninteresting. One more thing I wanted, I really wanted, was to become a sailor. I saw one in the church. He was dressed as a sailor, with bright buttons. Here's what I wanted. That's why I started learning algebra. Very difficult algebra. I taught, of course, more to get off, not because I liked it. Liked quite another, liked to read. I've already read so much...

Pyotr Afanasyevich also met the hunter Dubinin, because I told him that he was a wonderful person and knew such secrets in medicine that when I had a fever, he brought some bitter herb to my grandmother and boiled it in the stove like tea in a copper teapot. Bitter drink. Made me drink three glasses. But an hour later the fever ended, and the disease disappeared. By morning I was well. He knew some herbs and, having taken some long reeds from the water on the river, the ends of which he ate, he offered me too. They were the most delicious ends of a strange asparagus, and I ate them afterwards, all the time when I was on such overgrown rivers, and offered them to others. In the village of Okhotino, where I lived before the war, I showed these reeds to my fellow hunters. They laughed but ate. And then I noticed: village girls rode a canoe, tore these reeds, gathered them in heaps and ate them like gifts. But what these reeds are called, I do not know.

Pyotr Afanasyevich's face was always freckled; he was pretty full of himself. Brown eyes always looked somehow to the side, and in this look of his, when I looked at him, I saw that he was cruel. His large mouth was always tightly compressed. I learned that he did not believe in icons. He told me that there is no God, that at the Technical School, where he graduated from the course, a hole was drilled in the icon in the mouth of the saint of God, a cigarette was inserted and lit.

“We never found out who did it,” he told me, smiling.

For some reason I didn't like it. He was always serious, never laughed. I saw that he envied prosperity and hated rich people.

When my uncle Ivan Ivanovich Volkov met him, who had a big business on the railways, the business of uniforms for employees and some other supplies, he took him to his service at my request. But then my uncle said:

“Your Pyotr Afanasich is not very...

And he didn't let me deal with him anymore.

I came to Pyotr Afanasyevich and saw that he lived in a completely different way. His apartment was good, and there was a silver samovar on the table, new carpets, good furniture, a desk. And Pyotr Afanasyevich became something else.

I met Pyotr Afanasyevich once in the evening at the hunter Dubinin's. Dubinin treated him for freckles, and in a special way. He had to go to the river in the morning before sunrise, stand in the water up to his knees and wash himself, standing against the current. Every day. After some time, I noticed that Pyotr Afanasyevich's face became red, but there were no freckles. “That's what Dubinin is,” I thought. Told his aunt.

"Well," said the aunt, "don't tell me about Pyotr Afanasyevich." He is rubbish.

And why rubbish - I never found out. Pyotr Afanasyevich saw me at Dubinin's and said to me:

You laugh a lot, you're not serious. We must influence everyone. You be serious and don't laugh, then you will influence.

Dubinin, also on a hunt, once said to me:

- Pyotr Afanasyevich makes it painful out of himself smart - "who am I." He's against the king, he's all fools. And he is a fool. Skvalyga. He treated him, and he would like something. He asked for a jacket, but he didn't give it. Everyone is to blame for him, but he would have taken everything from everyone ... We know such and such. They only say - for the people, that the people are suffering, and he himself will whistle the last trousers of this people. The girl is belly - abandoned. And he left Volochka out of shame.

I have a new hobby. On large cardboards, with paints that I bought in powder in a mosquito shop in Vyshny Volochek, with gum arabic and water, paint pictures of the places that I met in endless walks with Dubinin through the forests, slums, rivers, around the lake. Bonfires, haystacks, a barn - write from yourself, not from nature. Nights, dreary shores ... And strangely, for some reason, I liked to portray everything in a dreary, sad, dull mood. And then suddenly it seemed to me that this was not the case. It was difficult for me to take these cans with brushes, paints and carry a picture with me. Far away to those beautiful places that I liked to paint from nature. Writing from nature is a completely different thing. And it was difficult to write a quick-changing motif of hanging clouds before a thunderstorm. It was changing so fast that I couldn't even grasp the colors of the passing moment. It didn’t work out - and therefore I began to write simply the sun, a gray day. But it's incredibly difficult. It is unthinkable to comprehend all the smallness of the picture of nature. For example, a small forest. How to make this whole bead of branches with leaves, this grass in flowers ...

He suffered terribly. I noticed that in the picture that I saw, objects of nature are not painted nearby, but somehow at a distance, and I also tried to do it in general. It came out easier.

When my brother Seryozha arrived, who was already in Moscow at the School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, he looked at my work for a long time. And said to me:

- Well done. I see you have good colors, but you can't draw.

Strange - that he wrote from life, I did not like it.

“To learn to draw,” my brother told me, “you need to draw people, you can draw with paint (since I thought that you can only draw with a pencil).

Then I began to draw my friend, Dubinin, and tortured him terribly. Yes, I also wanted to write his dog Dianka nearby. It's just impossible, how difficult it is. It seemed to me that it was absolutely impossible to write. Dianka is spinning, Dubinin is also turning his head in all directions, and I had to constantly redo it. So I could not finish the picture from him and give it to Dubinin. Dubinin said:

- The picture is good, only I don’t have such a mustache. Why did the mustache make it red, but my mustache is black. Do it with black paint.

I made him a black mustache for fun - ruined everything. Mustache straight climb alone, though you that. But Dubinin liked it, and he said:

- Now that's right...

And he was very pleased, and all his friends said:

- Looks like. Mustache is how to eat it.

Nonsense, I thought. “The mustache is just ugly.”

I had grief: I found a dog for myself, but you can’t keep it at home. Grandma didn't let me. A dog, by no means. And Dubinin didn't keep my dog ​​either.

- Well, - he said, - he brought in a dog, he will spoil Dianka, puppies not hunting will go.

- How not hunting puppies. My Poltron is a setter.

And Dubinin laughs.

“What,” he says, “a setter. Was before.

Kept a dog on the side of a widow who loved dogs. I brought him food, every time I ate I thought that I would take it to Poltron. Such a wonderful Poltron. When I bought him for fifty dollars from a hunter, I brought him on a string to my grandmother. I fed him milk in the kitchen, but he was not allowed into the house. He took him down the street to look for where to place him, went to Dubinin and let him loose. He ran away from me, at the fence, at the garden ... I run after him, and he runs away from me. I shout: "Poltron, Poltron." He turned around and ran on. I follow him. “Poltron,” I shout and wept. Poltron stopped and approached me. Poltron no longer fled from me. And went with me. Dubinin looked at Poltron and did not leave him with him. Only in the evening, on the advice of Dubinin, I took him to the factory reservoir, and he was sheltered by an elderly, fat, kind woman. She stroked his head and kissed him.

“Let him,” he says, “he lives with me, I have always had dogs, but now I don’t ...

And Poltron lived with her. I visited her, took him hunting with me, and on the very first day I went very far with Poltron, to Osechenka. I went into the forest, into places I didn't know before, and didn't know where I was. The places are deaf, near a high oak forest, where there was a swamp.

Poltron turned out to be a wonderful dog, he got it, and walked slowly, and suddenly made a stance. Huge black grouse flew out in front of me with a sharp crack. And I killed a big capercaillie. Poltron grabbed it and brought it. Here is a Poltron. I killed three capercaillie with him right there and walked along the edge of the forest. Suddenly a rider rode out to the side and shouted to me:

- What are you doing?

I stopped and looked at him.

- Do you have a ticket? the rider asked.

I speak:

“So what are you doing, do you know where you are?”

I speak:

Where, I don't know. I'm right here...

- Duck is here. After all, this is Tarletsky's estate, his forest. And you kill a goat, there are wild goats here. Jail you...

I speak:

Listen, I didn't know.

- Let's go to the office.

He rode, and I walked with Poltron and the black grouse beside me. Three versts I walked with him. Then, scolding me, the young lad-roadster softened his heart.

“Nothing, nothing,” he said, “but you will pay the fine. Five for each. Something is possible. There you see a pillar: "Hunting is prohibited" is written.

Indeed, there was a plaque on the pillar on which it was written: “Hunting is prohibited,” and to the right was already the house where we had come with him. The house was fine when I entered. The house is new. The young wife of a watchman, a samovar. The watchman, showing himself, took out an inkwell and a book from the cabinet, sat down in front of me, like a boss, and said:

- Here write here: “It is strictly forbidden for improper hunting, I have a place of residence ...”

I think, "What is it?"

“Write yourself,” I say.

He says:

Yes, I'm bad at writing. Here's how to answer this.

And his wife, putting fried mushrooms on the table, laughingly says:

- Look what kind of hunter you fired? What are you. And you, too, scribbler, look what. Why are you angry, what are you writing. Sit down and eat mushrooms.

The guy was still in the anger of his superiors.

- "What are you writing," he mimicked her, "how can some other kind of goat be killed ... but I didn't poke him." Then what. And who's to say, they'll kick me out.

- Yes, that's enough, - says the wife, - who knows ... You drive all day, and why here - no one goes. Look, the barchuk, he accidentally came in. Come on... Sit down and drink tea.

And her husband listened to her. I sat down to eat mushrooms, and I, like a criminal, sat at the table with a book. Looking at me angrily, the watchman said:

“Sit down, I guess you haven’t eaten…”

I sat down at the table.

“Anna,” he said to his wife, “get it…

Anna put the bottle and glasses on the table and sat down herself. He poured a glass for me and my wife and drank it himself. Looked at me and asked:

- And who are you?

“I am from Volochok,” I say.

- Uh, where did you get as an infantryman. Look, it's getting dark, it's thirty versts... What are you doing, what business?

“Not yet,” I say.

- From what?

- I'm studying. I don’t know yet what my learning will lead to. I want to become a painter.

- Look at you ... Here's what. On the iconic part.

I speak:

– No, I don’t want to. But I want to paint a hunt, a picture of a hunter. That's how you caught me in the forest, how we eat mushrooms with you in the lodge.

- Why is it here?

- Like what? Very well…” I said and laughed. - You wrote a protocol for me very well ...

The wife laughed too.

“Good, good,” he mimicked me, “but why. Look, he killed three capercaillie, and if you run into someone, I will be responsible.

And the wife says:

- Who walks around here?

“But still,” he says, “fifteen rubles fine.”

I speak:

- I don't have fifteen rubles.

No, they'll put you in jail.

The wife laughs.

- What, - she says, - Tarletsky doesn’t order, right, to shoot goats.

- Are there goats here?

- Yes, - said the watchman, - Tarletsky said it himself.

- Did you see it?

- No, no, I didn’t see ...

Laughing wife says:

- Duck, there are no goats, and this year ago there were hunters, some gentlemen, non-Russians. Here they were - drunker than wine. Duck is true, they let a goat, white, young. They showed me, it means to shoot a goat. Well, she ran away. They saw her, they shot, but what, but something they want. Here they are drinking. And the wine is good. The bottles are clapping and the wine is running. It was hot. Duck they put bottles in their mouths. Well, what, they didn’t shoot anything ... Dogs are with them, only dogs don’t run after a goat. She is not wild, you know, that's why they don't run.

In August I returned to Moscow. Suschevo. Father's poor apartment. The father is sick, lying down. His mother is always depressed by his illness. The father is thin, in his beautiful eyes there is a disease.

I feel sorry for my father. He lies and reads. There are books around him. He was glad to see me. I look - the book says: Dostoevsky. I took one book and read it. Amazing…

Brother Seryozha came. He lived separately with the artist Svetoslavsky in some kind of large barn. It's called a workshop. It was good there. Svetoslavsky painted a big picture - the Dnieper, and my brother made illustrations, which depicted cavalry rushing on horseback, exploding shells, cannonballs - war. There was a war with the Turks.

“The exam is the day after tomorrow,” my brother told me. - You are afraid?

“No,” I say, “nothing.

– Alexey Kondratievich Savrasov saw your sketches and praised you very much. And Levitan said that you are special and do not resemble anyone like us. But he's afraid you'll do it. You've never painted with plaster, and this is an exam.

I thought: “From plaster - what does this mean? Plaster heads…how boring.” And immediately the thought flew off to where the lake, Dubinin, the fire at night, hunting. Well, I took Poltron with me. Poltron sleeps with me. But I and Poltron hate cities, and I wondered why these cities were built. What could be the filth of a stone pavement with pedestals, dust, some houses, boring windows. They don't live like that. Everyone must live near the forest, where there is a river, a garden, a palisade, a cow, horses, dogs. You have to live there. So silly. Marvelous rivers of Russia - what a beauty. What gave, what evenings, what morning. The dawn is always changing, everything is for the people. You have to live there. How much space. And they are here ... where the garbage pits are in the yards, everyone is kind of angry, preoccupied, everyone is looking for money and chains - I said, remembering Pushkin's Gypsy.

And I loved Pushkin so much that I cried reading it. Here it was a man. He said everything and told the truth. No, I'll fail the exam, I'll go live with Dubinin. I feel sorry for the father ... and mother ...

And I walked along the road in the evening to my place, to Sushchevo, and tears dripped from my eyes ... somehow by themselves.

It was sad at home, poor. And my father read everything. I looked out the window of my little room, and Poltron was lying beside me. I stroked, and he sat down next to me, looked out the window, the square is visible from the side - the Yauza part, the yellow house, the gate, boring and dirty windows ... On the bench, firefighters in shiny helmets, Roman style, smoke shag, spit.

When I got into bed, I heard a voice sing in the distance:

In one familiar street -

I remember the old house

With a high dark staircase

With a curtained window...

Some distant sadness and a mysterious feeling of some house with a high staircase filled my soul. And the song of the prisoner who sang in prison was full of sadness.

In the morning I went to Myasnitskaya to the School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. There were many students. They passed me to the classrooms, carried folded paper, preoccupied, frightened. For some reason, everyone has big hair. And I noticed how sullen they all were, and I thought, "They must not be hunters." The faces are pale. It seemed to me that they were first soaked somewhere, in some kind of brine, and then dried. For some reason I didn't really like them. The expression of many, almost all, was similar to Pyotr Afanasyevich. “Probably they all know how to influence,” I thought. - That's disgusting. Why influence. What's the point of influencing?

The next day I read that an examination was being appointed for those who entered: the Law of God. And as soon as I read it, I saw that a priest entered the waiting room, in a luxurious silk cassock, with a large pectoral cross on a gold chain. He had a big face, smart and angry, and potatoes grew on his nose. He walked heavily into the office past me. I think - that's tomorrow ... And I ran home and sat down to the catechism.

In the morning, at half past ten, a soldier at the classes, going out the door from the room where the exam was taking place, shouted: "Korovin!"

My heart skipped a beat. I entered a large room. A priest was sitting at a table covered with blue cloth, next to him was Inspector Trutovsky and someone else, probably a teacher. He fanned me large tickets. When I took it, turned it over, read: "Patriarch Nikon", I thought to myself: "Well, I know that." Since I read the history of Karamzin.

And he began to answer that Nikon was a very educated person, he knew both Western literature and the religious aspirations of Europe and tried to introduce many changes in the routine of faith.

The father looked at me intently.

“Most likely, Nikon was thinking about the unification of the Christian religion,” I continued.

“Wait a minute,” the priest said to me, looking angrily, “what are you talking about heresy, huh? This is where you got so, huh? First learn our program,” he said angrily, “and then come.

“Wait a minute,” Trutovsky said, “of course, he read it.

– What did you read?

I speak:

– Yes, I have read a lot, I have read Karamzin… I have read Solovyov…

“Ask him something else,” said Trutovsky.

- Well, say the Third Ecumenical Council.

I told, timidly, about the Ecumenical Council.

The priest thought and wrote something in a notebook, and I saw how he crossed out zero and gave me a three.

“Go on,” he said.

When I passed through the door, the soldier shouted: "Pustyshkin!" - and past, with a pale face, pushing me, another student came through the door.

The exams went well. In other subjects I got good grades, especially in art history. The drawings from the plaster head did not come out well, and probably the summer landscapes I exhibited helped me. I was accepted into the school.

The school was wonderful. In the dining room behind the counter is Athanasius, he has a huge bowl-cauldron. There is warm sausage - excellent, cutlets. He deftly cut the pecked bread with a knife and put hot sausage into it. It was called "to the piglet." A glass of tea with sugar, kalachi. The rich ate for a dime, and I for a nickel. In the morning, painting from nature - either an old man or an old woman, then scientific subjects until three and a half, and from five - evening classes from plaster heads. The classroom is like an amphitheater, the desks go higher and higher, and on the large folders there is a large sheet of paper on which you need to draw with an ink pencil - such a black one. On one side of me sat Kurchevsky, and on the left was the architect Mazyrin, whose name is Anchutka. Why Anchutka is very similar to a girl. If you put a woman's handkerchief on him, well, you're done - just a girl. Anchutka draws cleanly and holds her head to one side. He tries very hard. And Kurchevsky often leaves the classroom.

“Let’s go smoke,” he says.

I speak:

- I do not smoke.

- Do you have two rubles? he asks.

I speak:

- No, but what?

- Can you get it?

- I can, only with my mother.

- Let's go to Sobolevka ... Dance limpopo, Zhenya is there, you will see - you will die.

– Who is this? I ask.

- Like who? Wench.

I immediately introduced myself to the village girls. "What's the matter?" I thought.

Suddenly, the teacher Pavel Semyonovich comes - bald, tall, with a long black and gray beard. It was said that this professor lived for a long time as a monk on Athos. He approached Kurchevsky. I took his folder and sat down in his place. He looked at the drawing and said quietly, in a whisper, sighing:

- Ehma ... You all run around smoking ...

He pushed the folder away and came over to me. I moved on the desk next to me. He looked at the drawing and looked at me.

- Clever, - he said, - but if they didn’t talk, it would be better ... Art does not tolerate fuss, conversations, this is a high business. Ehma… what were they talking about?

- Yes, - I say, - Pavel Semyonitch ...

- Yes, something like that ...

- Yes, they wanted to go ... he called limpopo to dance.

- What? .. - Pavel Semyonitch asked me.

I speak:

- Limpopo...

– I have never heard such dances… Ehma…

He moved to Anchutka and sighed.

“Woe, woe,” he said, “what are you doing. Let's take a look at the forms. Are you a painter or an architect?

“Architect,” answered Anchutka.

- That's what you see ... - said, sighing, Pavel Semenovich and moved to the next one.

When I came home, for tea, where Brother Seryozha was, I said to my mother:

- Mom, give me two rubles, please, I really need it. Kurchevsky called me, who draws next to me - he is so cheerful - to go with him to Sobolevka, there is such Zhenya that when you see it, you will die straight.

Mother looked at me with surprise, and Seryozha even got up from the table and said:

- Yes, what are you? ..

I saw such a fright and I think: “What's the matter?” Seryozha and mother went to their father. My father called me, and my father's beautiful face laughed.

- Where are you going, Kostya? - he asked.

“Yes, that’s it,” I say, not understanding what was the matter, why everyone was frightened. - Kurchevsky called to Sobolevka to the girls, Zhenya is there ... He says - it's fun, dancing limpopo ...

The father laughed and said:

- Go. But you know, that's better - wait, I'll get better ... - he said, laughing, - I'll go with you together. Let's dance limpopo...

The teachers of the Moscow School of Painting and Sculpture were famous artists: V. G. Perov, E. S. Sorokin, P. S. Sorokin - his brother, I. M. Pryanishnikov, V. E. Makovsky, A. K. Savrasov and V. D. Polenov.

Everyone knows Perov's paintings, and the best of them were in the Tretyakov Gallery: "Hunters at Rest", "Bird Catcher", "Rural Procession at Easter" and "Pugachev's Court". At Pryanishnikov's in the same place - "The End of the Hunt", "Prisoners of the French." Makovsky has “Party”, “In the forester's hut”, “The collapse of the bank”, “Friends-friends” and “Visit to the poor”, E. S. Sorokin, I don’t remember if there were paintings in the Tretyakov Gallery. Savrasov had a painting "The Rooks Have Arrived". At Polenov - "Moscow Courtyard", "Grandmother's Garden", "Old Mill", "Sick", "On the Tiberias (Gennesaret) Lake" and "Caesar Fun". But Polenov entered the School as a teacher of the landscape class. He was chosen by the Council of Teachers as a landscape painter and therefore was not a teacher in a natural class, where students painted the body from sitters.

For Polenov, therefore, it was not believed that he was a pure genre painter. Professors V. G. Perov, V. E. Makovsky and E. S. Sorokin were in the natural class.

Sorokin was a wonderful draftsman, he brilliantly graduated from the Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg, received a gold medal for a large program program and was sent abroad, to Italy, where he stayed for a long time. He painted amazingly. This is the only classical draftsman who has remained in the traditions of the Academy, Bryullov, Bruni, Yegorov and other draftsmen. He told us:

- You sketch everything, but do not draw. And Michelangelo painted.

Evgraf Semenovich wrote great works for the temple. They are numerous, and all his works are made by himself. He knew how to draw a person by heart. Only the dress and suit he copied from the mannequin. His colors were monotonous and conditional. His saints were decent, good in form, but somehow the same. Painting was quiet, monotonous. We liked his charcoal drawings, but the painting didn't tell us anything.

Once Evgraf Semyonovich, when I was his student in a life class and painted a naked model, invited me to his dacha, which he had in Sokolniki. It was spring - he told me:

You are a landscape painter. Come to me. I have been painting a landscape for the third summer. Come take a look.

In the dacha garden, he took out a large canvas, which depicted his yellow dacha, and behind the pines, Sokolniki. A shadow lay down from the dacha on the ground of the yard. It was a sunny day. I was struck by the fact that the reflection in the windows, on the panes, is amazingly drawn correctly and the whole dacha is brought into perspective. It was some kind of architectural drawing, smoothly painted with liquid oil paints. The colors are incorrect and unlike nature. Everything is proportionate. But nature is completely different. The pines were painted dry, dark, there were no relationships or contrasts. I looked and said simply:

- Not this way. Dry, dead.

He listened attentively and answered me:

- It's true. I don't see what. This is my third summer writing. What's the matter, I don't understand. Does not exceed. I have never painted a landscape. And it doesn't come out. You try to fix it.

I was confused. But agreed.

"Don't mess it up," I told him.

- Well, nothing, do not be afraid, here are the paints.

I looked in the paint box. I see - "terre de sienne", ocher, "bone" and blue Prussian, but where is the cadmium?

- What? - he asked.

- Cadmium, kraplak, Indian, cobalt.

“I don’t have these colors,” Sorokin says. - Here is the blue Prussian blue - I write with it.

“No,” I say, “that won’t do. Here the colors speak in nature. Oh, don't do it.

Sorokin sent for paints, and we went back to the house for breakfast.

- That's what you are, - said Evgraf Semenovich, smiling. - The colors are not the same. And his eyes looked at me so kindly, smiling. “That's what you are,” Sorokin continued, “quite different. Everyone scolds you. But you write the body well. And a landscape painter. I am surprised. They scold you, they say that you write differently. Seems like on purpose. And I think - no, not on purpose. And so there is something in you.

“What is it?” I say. - I just want to take the relationship more accurately - contrasts, spots.

“Spots, spots,” Sorokin said. - What spots?

- Why, there, in nature, it is different - but everything is the same. You see logs, glass in the window, trees. For me, it's just paint. I don't care what the stains are.

- Well, wait. How is it? I see logs, my dacha is made of logs.

“No,” I answer.

- How not, what are you, - Sorokin was surprised.

- When you take the paint correctly, the tone is in contrast, then the logs will come out.

- Well, it's not. You need to first draw everything, and then color it.

“No, it won’t work,” I replied.

“Well, that’s what they scold you for. Drawing is the first in art.

“There is no drawing,” I say.

“Well, what are you, pissed off or what?” What you!

- He is not here. There is only color in the form.

Sorokin looked at me and said:

- Strange. Well, then, how can you make a picture not from nature, without seeing the drawing.

I'm only talking about nature. You after all write from nature a summer residence.

- Yes, from nature. And I see - I can't. After all, this is a landscape. I thought it was simple. But go: what to do - I do not understand. Why is this. I will draw the figure of a man, a bull. But the landscape, the dacha - nothing, but go ahead, it doesn't work out. Aleksei Kondratievich Savrasov was at my place, he looked, he told me: “This is a yellow painted dacha - it’s disgusting for me to look, not only to write.” Here's a freak. He loves spring, dry bushes, oaks, distances, rivers. Draws the same, but incorrectly. I was surprised - why am I writing this cottage. And Sorokin laughed good-naturedly.

After breakfast the paints were brought. Sorokin looked at the paints. I put a lot on the palette:

- I'm afraid, Evgraf Semenovich, - I'll spoil it.

“Nothing, spoil it,” he said.

With a whole cadmium and cinnabar, I laid out the spots of pine trees burning in the sun, and the blue shadows from the house, moved with a wide brush.

“Wait,” Sorokin said. Where is that blue? Is it blue shadows?

“But how?” I replied. - Blue.

- OK then.

The air was warm blue, light. I wrote thickly the sky, outlining the drawing of pines.

"That's right," Sorokin said.

Logs from the ground went in yellow, orange reflections. The colors burned with incredible intensity, almost white. Under the roof, in the porch, there were shades reddish with ultramarine. And the green herbs on the ground burned so that he did not know how to take them. It came out quite different. The paints of the old picture peeped out here and there as a dark brown mud. And I rejoiced, hurrying to write that I was frightening my dear, dear Evgraf Semyonovich, my professor. And it felt like it came out as some kind of mischief.

“Well done,” Sorokin said, laughing, closing his eyes from laughter. “Well, just what is it?” Where are the logs?

“No need for logs,” I say. - When you look there, the logs are not so visible, but when you look at the logs, you can see them in general.

Sure, there is something, but what is it?

“That “something” is light. This is what is needed. This is spring.

- How is spring, what are you doing? Here's something I don't understand.

I began to trace the logs, separating them with a semitone, and made stamps of pine trees.

“Now it’s good,” Sorokin said. - Well done.

“Well, here it is,” I replied. - It's worse now. Dry land. The sun burns less. Spring is less.

- Wonderful. That's why they scold you. You all seem to be on purpose. Out of spite.

- How ill luck would have it, what are you saying, Evgraf Semyonovich?

- No, I understand, but they say, everyone is talking about you ...

“Let them talk, but bring it all together, it’s hard to put everything together,” I say. - It is difficult to make these scales in the picture, what's what. Paint to paint.

- That's the whole point here. That's what. You must first draw correctly, and then this is how you are. Colorize.

“No,” I disagreed.

And for a long time, until late at night, I argued with my dear professor, Evgraf Semyonovich. And I advised him to show this to Vasily Dmitrievich Polenov.

"I'm afraid of him," said Evgraf Semyonovich. - He's important.

“What are you,” I say, “this is the simplest and sweetest person. A real artist, a poet.

- Well, he won’t like my dacha, like Alexei Kondratievich. Fools are poets.

“No,” I say. - He does not look at the cottage. He loves painting, not plot. Of course, I don't really like the dacha, but that's not the point. Color and light is important, that's what.

“You know, I never thought about it. The landscape is, I thought so - let me try, I think - just ...

When he left Sorokin, he said goodbye to me, laughing, said:

- Well, a lesson. Yes, you gave me a lesson.

And he slipped an envelope into my coat pocket.

- What are you, Evgraf Semyonovich?

- Nothing, take it. It's me ... it will do for you.

I was driving home in a cab. He took out and tore open the envelope. There was a piece of paper in one hundred rubles. What a joy it was.

Mamontov's private opera in Moscow opened in Gazetny Lane in a small theater. S. I. Mamontov adored Italian opera. The first artists who sang with him were Italians: Padilla, Francesco and Antonio d'Andrade. They soon became favorites of Moscow. But Moscow greeted Mamontov's opera with hostility. Respectable business merchants said that it somehow did not suit the chairman of the railway to keep the theater. S. I. Mamontov commissioned I. I. Levitan to perform the scenery for the opera A Life for the Tsar. And for me - "Aida" and then "The Snow Maiden" by Rimsky-Korsakov. I worked together with V. M. Vasnetsov, who made four wonderful sketches of scenery for The Snow Maiden, and I executed the rest according to my own sketches. The costumes for the artists and Vasnetsov's choir were wonderful. The Snow Maiden was performed by Salina, Lelya - Lyubatovich, Mizgirya - Malinin, Berendey - Lodiy, Bermyata - Bedlevich. The Snow Maiden was held for the first time, and was coldly received by the press and Moscow. Savva Ivanovich said:

Well, they don't understand.

Vasnetsov was with me at Ostrovsky's. When Viktor Mikhailovich spoke to him enthusiastically about The Snow Maiden, Ostrovsky somehow especially answered:

- Yes, what ... All this is me ... A fairy tale ...

It was evident that this wondrous work of his was the intimate side of Ostrovsky's soul. He kind of shied away from the conversation.

“Snegurochka,” he said, “well, do you like it?” I am surprised. This is how I sinned. Nobody likes it. Nobody wants to know.

I was very struck by this. Ostrovsky, apparently, appreciated this wise work of his so much that he did not want to believe that someone would understand him. It was so special and so drew the time. And Rimsky-Korsakov didn't even come to Moscow to see her production. Mamontov was very surprised by this. Told me:

- Significantly. These two great men, Ostrovsky and Rimsky-Korsakov, do not believe that they will be understood, they do not allow thought, just as Mussorgsky did not believe and did not appreciate his works. The coldness and snobbery of society towards marvelous authors is a bad sign, this is a lack of understanding, bad patriotism. Eh, Kostenka, - Savva Ivanovich told me, - it’s bad, inertly, they don’t hear, they don’t see ... Here “Aida” is full, but they don’t go to the “Snegurochka”, and they scold the newspapers. And the officer said:

Dreams of poetry, creation of art

Sweet delight does not stir our minds...

“Lermontov was a big and smart man,” Savva Ivanovich said. - Think how strange it is, I gave university students a lot of tickets to the "Snegurochka" - they don't go. Isn't it strange. But Viktor (Vasnetsov) says - it is necessary to stage "Boris", "Khovanshchina" by Mussorgsky. They won't. Witte asks me why I keep the opera theater, it's not serious. “This is more serious than the railways,” I replied. “Art is not only entertainment and amusement.” If you only knew how he looked at me, as if at a man from Sukonnaya Sloboda. And he said frankly that he did not understand anything in art. In his opinion, this is just entertainment. Isn't it strange, - said Mamontov. - But a smart person. Here you go. How strange everything is. Empress Catherine, when there was serfdom and she was a serf-owner, on the building of the Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg ordered to draw: "Free Arts". The nobles were excited. “Calm down, nobles, this is not the abolition of serfdom, do not worry. This freedom is different, it will be understood by those who will have inspiration for the arts. And inspiration has the highest rights. The conservatory also exists, but in the imperial theaters operas are canceled and neither Mussorgsky nor Rimsky-Korsakov is staged. It is necessary that the people know their poets and artists. It's time for the people to know and understand Pushkin. And the finance minister says it's fun. Is it so? When they think about bread alone, perhaps there will be no bread.

Savva Ivanovich was fond of the theater. He tried to revive Russian artists. In the opera, he was a director and understood this matter. He taught the artists how to play and tried to explain to them what they were singing. The Mamontov Theater looked like some kind of school. But the press, newspapers were picky about the artists, and Mamontov's theater caused ill will. Mamontov's repertoire included new foreign authors: Lakme by Delibes, where the famous van Zandt sang the part of Lakme. Wagner's Lohengrin, Verdi's Otello were also staged, where Tamagno sang, then Masini, Broggi, Padilla - all the best Italian singers sang in Mamontov's opera.

Notes

Perhaps K. A. Korovin is referring to the father of the Decembrist, Pavel Nikolaevich Bestuzhev-Ryumin, since Mikhail Pavlovich, who was executed at the age of 23, did not have a wife and children.

Kubar- a toy like a top.

A priori (lat.) - lit.: from the previous - the truth, accepted without evidence.

We are talking about P. S. Sorokin.

End of free trial.