Astafiev monk in new pants analysis. Victor Astafiev - Horse with a pink mane (collection)

The story is written from the perspective of the boy Viti. He was told to sort out potatoes. Grandmother gave him a "lesson" with two rutabags, and he sits all morning in a cold, frosty cellar. The only thing that prevents the boy from escaping is the dream of new trousers with a pocket, which grandmother Katerina promised to sew by the first of May - Vitin's eighth birthday.

I see myself clearly in these pants, smart, handsome. My hand is in my pocket, and I walk around the village and do not take my hand out. Vitya has never had new pants. Until now, his clothes were altered from obsolete things. Having moved the swede a couple of times closer, Vitya masters the "lesson" just in time for dinner. Grandma notices the deception when the boy is already jumping out of the cellar.

Grandma bought the fabric for the pants a long time ago. It was kept in the depths of her chest. Vitya, however, doubted that his grandmother would have time to sew the pants: she was always busy. In their village, she is like a general, everyone respects grandmother Katerina and runs to her for help. When a man drinks down and starts to rampage, all family values ​​are deposited in grandmother's chest, and the drunkard family escapes in her house.

When the grandmother opens the treasured chest, Vitka is always nearby and strokes the matter with dirty fingers. Neither punishment nor delicacies help - the boy roars and demands pants.

My hopes did not come true. For his birthday, on May 1st, the pants were not sewn. Grandmother took to her bed in the very dark. She is placed in the upper room on a high bed, and from there the grandmother commands numerous assistants. The grandmother is worried - she did not sew pants for her grandson - and Vitka tries to distract her with conversations, asks what kind of illness she has. Grandmother says that this disease is from hard work, but even in her hard life she finds more joys than sorrows.

The grandmother began to sew pants as soon as she recovered a little. Vitya does not leave her all day, and is so tired of endless fittings that he falls asleep without supper. He wakes up in the morning to find new blue pants, a white shirt, and repaired boots by his bed. Grandmother lets Vitya go to his grandfather alone.

Discharged to smithereens, with a bundle in which there were fresh garments for my grandfather, I left the yard when the sun was already high and the whole village lived its ordinary, slow life. Having listened to admiring sighs, the boy goes to his grandfather.

The path to capture is not a short one, through the taiga. Vitya is not naughty, he walks sedately, so as not to get his pants dirty and not knock off new toes on his boots. On the way, he stops on a rock that marks the confluence of two mighty rivers - Mana and Yenisei - admires the taiga distances for a long time and manages to soak precious pants in the river. While the pants and boots are drying, Vitya is asleep. The dream does not last long, and now the boy is already on the hunt.

A neighbor's Sanka lives with his grandfather on the hut, learns to plow. He enviously examines Vitka, calls him "a monk in new pants." Vitka understands - this is out of envy, but all the same, Sankin's trick falls in. He selects the hole with viscous mud left after the river bottling, very briskly runs over it and begins to incite Vitka to the same feat. The boy can not stand Sanka's bullying, runs into the hole and gets stuck. The cold mud squeezes his arthritic legs. Sanka tries to pull him out, but he lacks strength. We must run after grandfather. And then grandmother Katerina appears at the pit. She felt that she was in trouble with her grandson and hurried to catch.

For four days Vitya lay on the stove with an attack of arthritis.

Grandma could not catch Sanka. As I guessed, my grandfather took Sanka out from under the planned retribution. Sanka is forgiven when he accidentally sets fire to his refuge - an old hunting hut by the river. The boots sank in the mud, and the grandmother washed the pants, and they faded, lost their luster. But the whole summer is ahead. “And the clown with them, with pants and boots too,” thinks Vitka. - “I'll make some more. I will earn. "

(5 estimates, average: 4.40 out of 5)

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Monk in new pants

I have been ordered to sort out the potatoes. The grandmother determined the norm, or harnessed, as she called the task. This harness is marked by two rutabags, lying on one and the other side of the oblong bottom, and to the rutabes of those is the same as to the other bank of the Yenisei. When I get to the rutabagas, God only knows. Maybe I won't be alive by that time!

In the basement, there is an earthen, grave silence, mold on the walls, and a sugary kurzhak on the ceiling. I just want to take it on my tongue. From time to time, for no reason at all, it crumbles from above, falls into the collar, sticks to the body and melts. Also good is not enough. In the pit itself, where the perch with vegetables and tubs of cabbage, cucumbers and saffron milk caps, the kurzhak hangs on the threads of a cobweb, and when I look up, it seems to me that I am in a fairy-tale kingdom, in a distant state, and when I look down, my heart my blood bleeds and takes me a great, great melancholy.

All around here are potatoes. And you need to sort them out, potatoes. The rotten one is supposed to be thrown into a wicker box, a large one - into sacks, a smaller one - to be thrown into the corner of this huge, like a courtyard, bottom-hole in which I sit, maybe for a whole month and I'll die soon, and then everyone will know how to leave the child here alone , and even an orphan, besides.

Of course, I am no longer a child and I am not working in vain. The larger potatoes are selected for sale in the city. My grandmother promised to use the proceeds to buy manufactures and sew me new trousers with a pocket.

I see myself clearly in these pants, smart, handsome. My hand is in my pocket, and I walk around the village and do not take out my hand, if I need to, put it - a grandma's bat or money - I only put it in my pocket, no value will fall out of my pocket and will not be lost.

Pants with a pocket, and even new ones, I have never had. They change everything for me. The bag will be dyed and re-sewn, a woman's skirt that has come out of socks, or something else. Once they even used half-shawls. They painted it and sewed it, it faded with sweat and the cells became visible. All the Levont'ev guys laughed at me. Let them cheer!

I wonder what they will be, pants, blue or black? And will they have a pocket - outside or inside? Outdoor, of course. The grandmother will begin to fiddle with the inner! She has no time for everything. Relatives must be bypassed. Tell everyone. General!

Here I rushed off somewhere again, and I sit here, work. At first I was scared in this deep and silent basement. It all seemed as if someone had hidden in the gloomy, rotten corners, and I was afraid to move and I was afraid to cough. Then he grew bolder, took a small lamp without glass, left by his grandmother, and shone in the corners. There was nothing there, except for a greenish-white mold that covered up logs with shreds, and earth dug by mice, and rutabagas, which from a distance seemed to me to be severed human heads. I fucked one rutabaga on a sweaty wooden frame with kurzhak veins in the grooves, and the frame responded in the uterus: "Oo-oo-ah-ah!"

Aha! -- I said. - That's it, brother! It doesn't hurt me! ..

I also took with me small beets, carrots and from time to time threw them into the corner, into the walls and scared away everyone who could be there from evil spirits, from brownies and other shantrap.

The word "shantrapa" is imported in our village, and I don't know what it means. But I like it. "Shantrapa! Shantrapa!" All the bad words, according to the grandmother's conviction, were dragged into our village by the Verekhtins, and if they were not with us, they would not even know how to swear.

I already ate three carrots, rubbed them on the shank of the wire rod and ate them. Then he put his hands under the wooden mugs, scraped out a handful of cold, resilient cabbage and ate it too. Then I caught the cucumber and ate it too. And he also ate some mushrooms from a tub, low as a tub. Now I have a rumble and toss and turn in my belly. These are carrots, cucumbers, cabbage and mushrooms quarreling among themselves. Close to them in one belly, we eat, we do not grieve, even if the stomach relaxed. The hole in the mouth is drilled through, there is nowhere and nothing to hurt. Maybe your legs will cramp? I straightened my leg, crunches in it, clicks, but nothing hurts. After all, when it is not necessary, it hurts so much. Pretend, or what? And the pants? Who will buy me pants and for what? Pants with a pocket, new and without straps, and even with a strap!

My hands begin to quickly and quickly scatter potatoes: large - in a yawning sack, small - in a corner, rotten - in a box. Fuck, bang! Tarabah!

Twist, twirl, twist! - I cheer myself up, and since only the priest and the rooster do not sing, and I drank, pulled me to the song.

They tried one girl,

She was a child of the year-ami-and-and-and ...

I shouted with a shake. This song is new, alien.

She, by all appearances, was also brought to the village by the Verekhtins. I remembered only these words from it, and I really liked them. Well, after we had a new daughter-in-law - Nyura, a daring songstress, I pricked up my ear, in a grandmother's way - naustauril, and remembered the whole city song. Further there, in the song, it is said for what the girl was tried. She fell in love with a man. Mushshin, hoping that he is a good man, but he turned out to be a betrayer. Well, she endured, the girl endured betrayal, took a sharp knife from the window, "and gave him a white breast."

How much can you endure, in fact ?!

Grandmother, listening to me, raised her apron to her eyes:

Passions, what passions! Where are we, Vitka, going?

I explained to my grandmother that a song is a song and we are not going anywhere.

No, boy, we're going to the edge, that's what. Since a woman with a knife on a peasant, that's all, that's it, guy, a complete coup, the last, therefore, the limit has come. All that remains is to pray for salvation. Here I myself have a more self-willed devil, and when will we quarrel, but with an ax, with a knife at my husband? .. Yes, God save us and have mercy. No-et, dear comrades, the collapse of the way of life, the violation of the order indicated by God.

In our village, not only a girl is being tried. And the girls get to be healthy! In the summer, grandmother and other old women will go out on the heap, and here they are judging, here they are judging: both Uncle Levontiya, and Aunt Vasenya, and Avdotya's maiden Agashka, who brought a present to her dear mother in a hem!

But I won’t understand: why do the old women shake their heads, spit and blow their nose? A present - is it bad? A present is good! Here my grandmother will bring me a present. Pants!

Twist, twirl, twist!

They tried one girl,

She was a child of the year-a-ami-and-and-and ...

The potato flies in different directions, and bounces, everything goes as it should, according to grandmother's adage again: "He who eats soon, works quickly!" Wow, quick! One rotten potato got into a good one. Remove it! You can't cheat the buyer. He puffed out the strawberries - what good happened? Shame and shame! If you come across a rotten potato, he, the buyer, is sbryndit. If he doesn’t take potatoes, it means that you will not receive either money, or goods, and pants. Who am I without pants? I'm a shantrap without pants. Go without pants, just as everyone strives to slap Levont'ev's guys on the bare bottom - that's his purpose, since you're naked - you can't resist, you'll slap.

Shan-tra-pa-a, shan-tra-apa-a-a-a ...

Opening the sash, I look at the basement steps. There are twenty-eight of them. I already counted for a long time. My grandmother taught me to count to a hundred, and I counted everything that could be counted. The upper door to the basement is slightly ajar, so that I would not be so scared here. Still a good person is a grandmother! General, of course, but since she was so ugly, you can't change it.

Above the door, to which a tunnel, white with kurzhak, and hung with fringed threads, leads, I notice an icicle. A tiny icicle, the size of a mouse's tail, but something immediately moved on my heart, a soft kitten moved.

Spring is coming soon. It will be warm. The first May will be! Everyone will celebrate, walk, sing songs. And I will be eight years old, they will stroke my head, feel sorry for me, treat me with sweets. And my grandmother will sew my pants for May Day. Will break into a cake, but sew - she is such a person!

Shantrapa-ah, shantrapa-ah! ..

Pants with a pocket will be sewn on May Day! ..

Try to catch me then! ..

Fathers, swedes, there they are! I overcame the harnessOnce two times I, however, moved the swede closer to me and thus shortened the distance measured by my grandmother. But where they used to lie, these rutabagas, I, of course, do not remember, and I don’t want to remember. For that matter, I can carry away the rutabagas altogether, throw them out and sort out all the potatoes, and beets, and carrots - I don’t care at all!

They tried one girl ...

Well, how are you, little miracle on a silver platter?

I shuddered and dropped the potatoes from my hands. Grandma came. She came, old!

Nothing-oh-oh! Be healthy, employee. I can overcoat all vegetables - potatoes, carrots, beets - I can do everything!

You, father, be quiet when cornering! Eck brings you in!

Let it bring it in!

Are you drunk in any way from a rotten spirit ?!

Drunk! - I confirm. - Into the trolley ... They tried one girl ...

My mothers! And he was all over the place, like a pig! - Grandma squeezed my nose into the apron, rubbed my cheeks. - Get enough soap on you! - And pushed in the back: - Go to dinner. Eat cabbage soup with your grandfather, your neck will be white, your head will be curly! ..

Just lunch yet?

I suppose you thought I was robbing here for a week?

Aha!

I jumped up the step. Joints snapped in me, my legs crunched, and fresh chilly air floated towards me, so sweet after the rotten, stagnant basement spirit.

What a swindler! - heard downstairs in the basement. - That's a rogue! And who did you just go to? We do not have such in the family ... - My grandmother found the displaced rutabagas.

I kicked up my speed and emerged from the basement into the fresh air, on a clean, bright day, and somehow at once clearly noticed that everything in the yard was filled with a premonition of spring. It is in the sky, which has become more spacious, higher, pigeons in stains, it is also on the sweaty roofboards from the edge where the sun is, it is in the chirping of sparrows grabbing hand-to-hand in the middle of the yard, and in that still thin haze that arose over the distant passes and began to go down the slopes to the village, enveloping the forests, gullies, river mouths in a blue slumber. Soon, very soon, the mountain rivers will swell with a greenish-yellow ice frost, which with ringing matinees is crusting with a loose and sweet-looking crust, like that sugar crust, and the cakes will soon start baking, reddening along the rivers will turn purple, shine, the willows will be covered with a cone, the children will break willows to parental day, some will fall into the river, swoon, then the ice will eat away on the rivers, it will remain only on the Yenisei, between the wide banks, and, thrown by everyone, the winter road, sadly dropping thawing milestones, will humbly wait for it to be broken into pieces and carried away. But even before the ice drift, snowdrops will appear on the slopes, grass will sprinkle over the warm slopes and the First of May will come. We often have ice drift together, and the First May, and on the First May ...

No, it's better not to poison your soul and not think about what will happen on May 1st!

Matter, or manufactory, the so-called sewing product, grandmother bought, even when she went to the city on the sled road with the trade. The fabric was blue, scarred, rustled and crackled well if you run your finger over it. It was called treco. No matter how much later I lived in the world, how many pants I wore out, I have never come across a material with such a name. It was obviously that leotard. But this is just my guess, nothing more. There were many things in childhood that later did not occur again and did not repeat itself, unfortunately.

A piece of the manufactory lay in the depths of the chest, at the very bottom, lying under a low-value junk as if accidentally thrown over it - under balls of rags that are prepared for weaving rugs, under dresses, shreds, stockings, and boxes with "shmat" that had come out of socks. The dashing man will get to the chest, look at it, spit out of frustration and leave. Why did he break? Hoping for a profit? There are no valuables in the house and in the chest!

What a cunning grandmother! And if only she was so cunning. All women are on their minds. Some suspicious guest will appear in the house, or "himself", that is, the owner, will drink to the point that the pectoral cross is ready to drink, then in a secret bundle, secret manholes and passages forwarded to the neighbors, to all reliable people - a piece from the war of the cloth kept ; sewing machine; silver - two or three spoons and forks, inherited from someone, or traded from the exiles for bread and milk; "gold" - a pectoral cross with a Catholic thread in three colors, which must have come from the stages, from the Poles, who somehow got into our village by some means; a hairpin of noble, perhaps, and "Pitinbur" origin; a cover for a powder box or a snuff box; a dull copper button, which someone slipped in place of a gold one, for a gold one and is coming off; chrome boots and boots purchased on a "fish", which means that the owner once went to the northern fishing grounds, on wild "money", bought goods, it is stored until the holidays and until the weddings of children, until "going out to people", but here a dashing moment has come - save yourself who can, and save what you can.

The miner himself, with his eyes white from moonshine and a wild face in moss, runs around the yard with an ax, striving to chop everything to pieces, grabs a shotgun - therefore, do not forget, woman, and carry away the bandolier, bury the hunting supplies in a safe place ... ...

"Good" was dragged into "reliable hands", often in grandmothers' hands, and not only from the house of Uncle Levontius women found shelter here. Trampled in the distance, whispering in the corners: "Duck, look, godfather, don't make money on our mountain ..." - "What are you, what are you? I've been here ... The place won't lie ..." - "Where go away, not to the Boltukhins, not to carry them to Vershkov? "

All evening, when it is night, back and forth, back and forth, the boys run from someone else's courtyard. A disdainful mother with a black eye, a split lip, covering her small children with a shawl, presses them to her body in a strange house, on strangers, waiting for positive news.

The boy will come from the reconnaissance - head down: "Ishsho did not fall asleep. He crashes the benches. Got angry, there are no cartridges, there is a lomat on the Berdan stove ..." - "And when will he choke? When will his shameless balls flood? Winter is on the nose, firewood not a log, hay not taken out, he will cut a berdan, what will he go to the taiga with? I’ll give birth, don’t climb, you’ll get ready. So if we’re listening to the parent’s word? His eyebrows are falcon, a forelock of fire, a voice beyond the river to hear. So they sang, had fun ... - And suddenly on the move, abruptly to the "scout": - In daddy, all in daddy of your gold you grow! Just a little - “don’t touch your father!” So ​​don’t touch it! So we wander in other people's corners, we don’t let good people sleep. -ki, yes, you are my unfortunate little children, but under your father you are growing up without a father. He drowned five times - he did not drown, he burned in a forest fire - he did not burn out, he lost his way in the taiga - he didn’t get lost ... nor the forest, neither the water nor the earth accept it. I would have left, and it would have been better for us without him, the villain, it would have been ... Orphans would have grown up, but on the other hand, calm, hungry, but not cold ... "

Of the girls, some of the mothers will cry out, you see, and all the kids will do it.

"Let it be for you, it will be. It will calm down once, not iron lady, do not stone ...." - the grandmother reassures the unfortunate guests.

"Scout" again in an armful of a hat and in search. Five times, ten times a night he runs away until he comes with the joyful news: "That's it! Fell down in the middle of the hut ..."

And the usual, habitual prayer: "Glory to Thee, Lord! Glory to Those ... Forgive us, grandmother Katerina, I will get bored ..." I'll arrange it with a dressing room. I will, oh, I will remember, until the new brooms! .. "

And naparit! A trembling peasant overgrown with hair will stand in front of her and catch his pants, falling from the spare, to his back during the drunkenness of the grown-in belly.

Why should I do something, Grandma Katerina? She won't let her go home, die, she says, get lost, drunkard! You talk to her ...

About what?

Well, about that. The petition, they say, asks for more, which means it will not be repeated.

What won't happen again? You speak, speak. Look, he has no words. Yesterday he was so articulate and brave! On his woman, Jeanne God-given, with an ax and a gun. Warrior! Rebel!..

Well, fool, duck what? Drunken fool.

And ask from a drunken man?

What's the demand?

Why didn't you beat your head against the wall? Why with a gun not into himself, aiming at a woman? Why? Speak!

0-oh, grandma Katerina! Yes, I made such a disgrace every time! Yes, you distort me, such is the distortion of a reptile! ..

Grandmother "walks into the chest" - a celebration of the soul and a holiday. For some reason she opened it, whispering to herself, looking around, closing the door more tightly, lays out the goods upstairs, put my manufactory on the pants intended, set aside a piece of an old, such an old calico that my grandmother looks at the light. , with a tooth tries, well, little things, a box, tea jars with something tinkling, holiday forks and spoons tied in rags, church books and something hidden from the church - grandmother believes that the church is not completely closed and will still serve in it.

The family lives with the supplies of the grandmother. Everything is like that of kind people. And for a rainy day something is saved, you can calmly look into the future, and he will die, so there is something to dress up in and something to remember.

A latch clinked in the courtyard. The grandmother was wary. I guessed by the steps - a stranger, and once and again packed all the good, covered it with junk and various obscenities, thought to turn the key, but did not. And the grandmother let herself look miserable, almost grieving - falling on both legs, groaning, wandered towards the guest or some other person who was blown in by the wind. And that person had no choice but to think: the poor, the sick and the wretched people live here poorly, and there is only salvation left for them - to go through the world.

Whenever my grandmother opened the chest and there was a musical ringing, I was right there. I stood at the doorway on the threshold of the room and looked into the chest. My grandmother was looking for the thing she needed in a huge, like a barge, chest and did not notice me at all. I moved, drummed my fingers on the jamb - she did not notice. I coughed, at first once - she did not notice. I coughed many times, as if my whole chest had a cold through and through - she still did not notice. Then I moved closer to the chest and began to turn the huge iron key. Grandmother silently spanked on my hand - and still did not notice me ... Then I began to stroke the blue manufacture - treco with my fingers. Here the grandmother could not stand it and, looking at the important, handsome generals with beards and mustaches, with which the lid of the chest was pasted over from the inside, she asked them:

What am I to do with this child? - The generals did not answer. I ironed the manufactory. Grandmother threw back my hand under the pretext that it might be unwashed and stain the track. - It sees, it's a child, - I'm spinning like a squirrel in a wheel! It is a noble - I will sew pants for the birthday, be they sworn! It’s not there, stain it, and it climbs, and it climbs! .. - Grandma grabbed my ear and pulled me away from the chest. I buried my forehead against the wall, and I must have looked so unhappy that after a while the ringing of the castle was heard more subtly, more musically, and everything in me froze with blissful forebodings. With a little key, grandmother opened a Chinese box, made of tin, like a house without windows. All sorts of strange trees, birds and ruddy Chinese women in new blue trousers are painted on the house, only not from the track, but from some other fabric, which I also liked, but much less than my manufacture.

I was waiting. And for good reason. The fact is that the most valuable grandmother's values ​​are kept in the Chinese box, including candy, which in the store was called monpensier, and in ours it is simpler - stripes or stripes. There is nothing in the world sweeter and more beautiful than stripes! They were stuck on our Easter cakes, and on sweet pies, and they just sucked these sweetest stripes, who, of course, had them.

Grandma has everything! And everything is safely covered. You will find two shisha! Subtle gentle music was heard again. The box is closed. Maybe the grandmother has changed her mind? I began to sniff louder and wondered if I shouldn't let my voice go. But then it was heard:

Oh, cursed your soul! - And into my hand, which had long been expectedly lowered, my grandmother shoved rough stripes. My mouth is full of agonizing saliva, but I swallowed it and pushed my grandmother's hand away.

He-eh ...

What do you want? Belt?

Pants-s-s ...

Grandmother patted herself on the thighs contritely and turned not to the generals, but to my back:

This is what he, the blood drinker, do not understand the words? I interpret him in Russian - I'll sew it! And here he is! Dispelling! A? Would you like some candy or a lock?

Eat yourself!

Itself? - The grandmother temporarily loses the power of speech, cannot find words. -- Itself? I'll give it to you, myself! I'll show you - myself!

A turning point. Now we need to give a voice, otherwise it will hit, and I led from the bottom up:

Uh-uh ...

Poorie at me, poorey! - Grandma exploded, but I blocked her with my roar, and she gradually gave up, began to cajole me. - I'll sew it, I'll sew it soon. Oh, father, don't cry. Here are some sweets, pomusli. Sla-a-a-little stripes. Soon, soon, you will start to walk in new trousers, smart, but handsome, and handsome ...

Talking unctuously, in a church-like manner, my grandmother finally broke my resistance, thrust stripes into my palm, about five - it wouldn’t be miscalculated! She wiped my nose and cheeks with an apron and sent me out of the room, consoled and contented.

My hopes did not come true. For his birthday, on May 1st, the pants were not sewn. Grandmother took to her bed in the very dark. She always carried any minor pain on her legs and if she fell, then for a long time.

They moved her to the upper room, to a clean, soft bed, removed the rugs from the floor, curtained the window, lit the icon lamp near the iconostasis, and in the upper room it became like in someone else's house - it was half dark, cool, it smelled of unctuous oil, a hospital, people walked around the hut on tiptoe and talked in whispers. During these days of my grandmother's illness, I discovered how many relatives my grandmother has and how many people, and not relatives, also come to pity her and sympathize with her. And only now, albeit dimly, I felt that my grandmother, who always seemed to me to be an ordinary grandmother, was a very respected person in the village, but I didn’t obey her, quarreled with her, and a belated feeling of repentance was tearing me apart.

Grandmother breathed loudly, hoarsely, half-sitting in pillows, and kept asking:

Pokor ... did they feed the child?

The old women, daughters, nieces and various other people who ran the house calmed her down, they were fed, they say, your beloved child was drunk, there was no need to worry about anything, and, as proof, they brought me to bed myself, showed my grandmother. She hardly separated her hand from the bed, touched my head and said pitifully:

Grandma will die, what are you going to do? With whom to live? Who to sin with? Oh Lord, Lord! - She squinted her eyes at the icon: - Give strength for the sake of a miserable orphan. Guska! she called to Aunt August. - You will milk the cow, duck with warm water ... She is ... spoiled by me ... But don't tell you ...

And again the grandmother was reassured, demanded that she speak less and not worry, but she still talked all the time, worried, worried, because she could not live otherwise.

When the holiday came, my grandmother began to worry about my pants. I myself consoled her, talked to her about the illness, tried not to mention the pants. Grandmother had recovered a little by this time, and you could talk to her as much as you wanted.

WHAT kind of illness do you have, grandmother? - as if for the first time I was curious, sitting next to her on the bed. Thin, bony, with rags in split braids, with an old extinguisher hanging under a white shirt, grandmother slowly, counting on a long conversation, began to tell about herself:

I am planted, father, worn out. All hooded. From an early age in work, in work everything. At my mother's and my mother's, I had semen and raised my tithes ... It's easy only to say. And to grow ?!

But she spoke about the pitiful only at first, as if for a solo, then she talked about different incidents from her big life. It turned out, according to her stories, that there were much more joys in her life than hardships. She did not forget about them and knew how to notice them in her simple and difficult life. Children were born - a joy. The children were ill, but she saved them with herbs and roots, and not one died - also a joy. A new outfit for yourself or your children is a joy. A good harvest for bread is a joy. The fishing was prey - a joy. Once she put out her hand on the plowed field, and she straightened it herself, the suffering was just there, the bread was being removed, it was sting with one hand and did not become a braid - is this not joy?

I looked at my grandmother, marveled at the fact that she also had a father and mother, looked at her large, working hands with veins, at her wrinkled face with an echo of the old blush, at her greenish eyes, darkening from the bottom, at these braids of her sticking out like a girl's in different directions - and such a wave of love for my dear and groaningly close person rolled over me that I poked my face into her loose chest and buried my nose in a warm, grandmother's smelling shirt. In this impulse of mine there was gratitude to her for the fact that she remained alive, that we both are in the world and everything, everything around us is alive and kind.

You see, I didn't sew your pants for the holiday, - my grandmother stroked my head and repent. - I gave hope and didn't sew ...

Sew more, where to hurry?

Yes, God only let me rise ...

And she kept her word. I just started to walk, and immediately began to cut my pants. She was still weak, walking from bed to table, holding on to the wall, measuring me with a tape with numbers, sitting on a stool. She was shaken, and she put her hand to her head:

Oh Lord, forgive me, what is it with me? Purely with a frenzy!

But all the same, she measured well, drew on matter with chalk, estimated a piece of the track cut out at me, gave me two times so that I did not spin too much, which made me more cheerful, - after all, this is the first sign of my grandmother's return to her former life, full of it. recovery.

My grandmother was cutting the pants for almost the whole day, and she began to sew them the next day. Needless to say, I slept badly the night and got up to the light. Groaning and cursing, grandmother also got up and began to fuss in the kitchen. She kept stopping, as if listening to herself, but from that day on she did not go to bed in the upper room, went to her camp bed, closer to the kitchen and to the Russian stove.

In the afternoon, my grandmother and I together lifted the sewing machine from the floor and put it on the table. The typewriter was old, with flowers worked out on the body. Only individual curls came from the flowers, resembling rattlesnake fiery serpents. Grandmother called the typewriter "Signer", assured her that there was no price for her, and every time she told the curious in detail, with pleasure, that her mother, the kingdom of heaven to her, similarly exchanged this car with the exiles on the city pier for a one-year-old heifer, three sacks of flour and a ghee of ghee. That Krinka, almost whole, was never returned by the exiles. Well, what a demand from them - the exiles are the exiles - varnachye and black-legged boots, or even some warlocks before the coup were felled.

The "Signer" machine chirps. Grandma is turning the handle. Gently twists, as if going with courage, ponders further actions, suddenly accelerates the wheel and lets go, you can't see the handle - it turns like that. It seems to me that now the machine will sew all the pants in an instant. But the grandmother will put her hand on the shiny wheel, settle down the machine, tame its chirping, when the machine stops, she puts the cloth on her chest, looks carefully to see if the needle is piercing the cloth, whether the seam is crooked.

Grandma talked to me about good things, about pants:

It’s impossible for the commissar without pants, ”she reasoned, biting a thread and looking at the light at sewing. - A small commissar with a button and a shoulder strap. Hang the revolver - and you will be a uniform commissar Vershkov, or maybe Shshatinkin himself! ..

On that day, I did not leave my grandmother, because I had to try on pants. With each call, the trousers took on more and more basics and looked at me in such a way that I could not speak or laugh with delight. To the questions of the grandmother: is it pressing here, is it pressing here, shaking his head and suffocatingly issuing:

N-no-e-e!

Just don’t lie, then it will be too late to correct.

True, true, - I confirmed as soon as possible, so that only my grandmother would not start smacking her pants, would not postpone work.

Grandmother was especially focused and intent when it came to a hole - she was all embarrassed by some kind of wedge. If it, this wedge, is incorrectly placed, the pants will be matched before the deadline, and the "cockerel" will look out into the street. I didn't want it to happen and patiently endured fitting after fitting. The grandmother very carefully felt the "cock" in the area, and I was so tickled that I looked up with a squeal. Grandma kicked me on the back of the neck.

So, without lunch, she and I worked until dusk - it was I who begged my grandmother not to interrupt because of such a trifle as food. When the sun went beyond the river and touched the upper ridges, grandmother hurried - the cows were about to be brought in, but she was digging around, and instantly finished the work. She fitted a pocket in the shape of a burdock on her trousers, and although I would have preferred an inner pocket, I did not dare to object. So my grandmother put the finishing touches with a machine, pulled out the thread, rolled up her pants, stroked it on her stomach with her hand.

Well, thank God. After that I will repulse the buttons from something and sew them on.

At this time, the botala began to babble in the street, the cows were demanding and well fed. Grandmother threw her pants on the typewriter, jumped off and rushed off, punishing me on the go, so that I wouldn’t try to turn the typewriter, wouldn’t touch anything, wouldn’t harm.

I was patient. Yes, and no strength remained in me by that time. Already the lamps were lit up all over the village and people were having supper, and I was still sitting next to the "Signer" typewriter, from which my blue trousers were hanging. I sat without lunch, without supper and wanted to sleep.

I don't remember how my grandmother dragged me to bed, exhausted and exhausted, but I will never forget that happy morning in which I woke up with a feeling of festive joy. On the headboard of the bed, neatly folded, hung new blue trousers, wearing a washed white striped shirt, next to the bed spread the smell of burnt birch boots repaired by the shoemaker Zherebtsov, smeared with tar, with yellow, completely new vampers.

Immediately, my grandmother came from somewhere and began to dress me like a little one. I limply obeyed her, and laughed uncontrollably, and talked about something, and asked something, and interrupted myself.

Well, - said my grandmother, when I appeared before her in all my glory, in all the parade. Her voice trembled, her lips led to one side, and she already took hold of the handkerchief: - I should have seen your mother, deceased ...

I looked down gloomily.

Grandmother stopped lamenting, hugged me and made the sign of the cross.

Eat and go to your grandfather to catch.

One, baba?

Of course one. You are so big over there! Man!

Oh, babonka! - Out of fullness of feelings, I hugged her neck and patted her head.

Okay, okay, - my grandmother gently pushed me away. - Look, Lisa Patrikeevna, I would always be so kind and good ...

Discharged to smithereens, with a bundle in which there were fresh garments for my grandfather, I left the yard when the sun was already high and the whole village lived its ordinary, slow life. First of all, I turned to the neighbors and, with my appearance, plunged the Levont'ev family into such confusion that an unprecedented silence suddenly fell in the sodomy hut, and it became, this house, unlike itself. Aunt Vasya threw up her hands and dropped her stick. This stick hit one of the little ones on the head. He sang in a healthy bass. Aunt Vasenya grabbed the victim in her arms, stifled him, and she herself did not take her eyes off me.

Tanya was next to me, all the guys surrounded me, felt the matter, admired. Tanya reached into my pocket, found there a clean handkerchief and quieted down with a shock. Only her eyes expressed all my feelings, and from them I could guess how beautiful I am now, how she admires me and to what unattainable height I ascended.

They shook me, shook me up, and I had to break free and make sure that they did not get dirty, did not crumple anything and did not eat under the noise of shangi - a present for my grandfather. Here, after all, only yawn.

In a word, I was in a hurry to say goodbye, referring to the fact that I was in a hurry, and asked if I needed something to tell Sanka. Sanka Levontievsky at our hut - he helped grandfather in plowing matters. For the summer, Levont'ev's children were packed into people, and they fed there, grew up and worked. Grandfather had taken Sanka with him for two summers already. My grandmother, Katerina Petrovna, predicted that this convict would drive the old one crazy, there would be no way out of him, there would be a complete breakdown in work, then she wondered how grandfather and Sanka got along and were satisfied with each other.

Aunt Vasenya said that there was nothing to convey to Sanka, except for an order to obey grandfather Ilya and not drown in Mana if she decided to swim.

To my chagrin, at this noon hour the people on the street were rare, the village people had not yet finished their spring suffering. The peasants all left for Man - to hunt for marals - their antlers are now in a valuable time, and the haymaking was already approaching, and everyone was busy with business. But still, in some places the children played, went to the women’s consumption and, of course, paid attention to me, sometimes quite intently. Here is a meeting mincing aunt Avdotya, grandmother's sister-in-law. I go whistling. I walk past, I don't notice Aunt Avdotya. She turned to the side, and I saw her amazement, saw her spread her arms, heard words that are better than any music.

I feel sick! Isn't that Vitka Katerinin?

"Of course I am! Of course I am!" - I wanted to poke my aunt Avdotya, but I held back my impulse and only slowed down my steps. Aunt Avdotya hit herself on the skirt, in three leaps overtook me, began to feel, stroke and say all sorts of good words. In the houses the windows were thrown open, women and old women looked out, everyone praised me, everyone talked about grandmother and about our praises, so, they say, a guy grows up without a mother, and his grandmother leads him so that God forbid other parents to drive their children, and so that grandmother I read, obeyed and, if I grew up, I would not forget her goodness.

Our village is big, long. I got tired, worn out, until I walked it from end to end and took upon myself the whole tribute of admiration for me and my outfit, and also for the fact that I am alone, going to catch my grandfather. I was already covered in sweat when I left the outskirts.

I ran to the river, drank from the palms of the cold Yenisei water. From the joy that seethed in me, he threw a stone into the water, then another, was carried away by this occupation, but in time he remembered where I was going, why and in what form Yes, and the path is not close - five miles! I walked, even at first I ran, but I have to look under my feet so as not to knock down the yellow vamp on the roots. He switched to a measured step, not fussy, peasant, as grandfather always walked.

A large forest began from the hare. The dying boyarkas, pitted pine trees, birches, whose share fell to grow in the vicinity of the village and therefore were broken off into goliks during the winter, were left behind. A smooth aspen forest with a full, slightly brownish leaf rose thickly along the slope. A road with a washed pebble wound upward. Large gray slabs, scratched by horseshoes, were turned over by the spring currents. To the left of the road, a ravine was darkening, a spruce forest stood densely in it, in its midst a stream, falling asleep until autumn, dully rustled. In the spruce forest, hazel grouses were whistling, in vain calling the females. They had already sat down on the eggs and did not respond to the cavalier cockerels. Just now, an old capercaillie was busy on the road, clapped and took off with difficulty. He began to shed, but then he crawled out onto the road - to peck at pebbles, to beat lice and flea beetles out of himself with warm dust. Bath for him here! He would sit still in the thicket, in the light the lynx would devour him, the old fool, and the fox would not choke.

I lost my breath - the capercaillie thumped loudly with its wings. But there is not much fear, because it is sunny all around, light, and everything in the forest is busy with its own business. Yes, and I knew this road well - many times I rode it on horseback and on a cart with my grandfather, with my grandmother, with Kolcha Jr. and with various other people.

And yet I saw and heard as if anew, probably because for the first time I traveled alone to a hunt through the mountains and taiga. Further up the mountain, the forest was less common, maybe more, larch trees towered over the entire taiga and seemed to touch the clouds. I recalled how, on this long and slow climb, Kolcha junior always sang the same song, the horse slowed down his steps, carefully put his hooves so as not to interfere with the man's singing. And our horse himself - the Hawk - at the end of the mountain, stepped into a song at the top, let his "go-go-o-o-o" over the mountains and passes, but immediately, embarrassedly, gave a signal with his tail, they say, I know, which is not very good for me with songs, but I could not stand it, everything is very nice here and you are nice riders - you don’t whip me, you sing songs.

I also dragged on Kolcha Jr.'s song about a natural plowman, my voice rolled along the clearing, bouncing on stones and talus, funny repeating: "Ha-hal!" So, with the song, I climbed the mountain. It became brighter. The sun kept getting bigger and bigger. The forest thinned, and there were more stones on the road, they were larger, and therefore the whole road twisted around the cobblestones. The grass in the forest became less frequent, but there were more flowers, and when I went to the edge of the forest, the entire edge of the forest was on fire, overwhelmed with frying.

Above, over the mountains, our village fields began. At first they were reddish-black, only here and there the shoots of potatoes were grayishly gray on them and a plowed pebble gleamed in the sun. But then everything was flooded with the multi-colored wavy green of thickening bread, and only the borders, left by people who did not know how to break the ground, separated the fields from each other, and, like the banks of rivers, did not allow them to merge together, to become the sea.

The road here is covered with grass - a goose's foot, blooming at all without oppression, although people traveled and walked along it. The plantain was gaining strength to light up its gray candle, every bylka here turned green, stretched, trudged along the furrows from the wheels, along the hoof pits, not choking on the road dust. By the side of the road, in clearing houses, where stones were dumped from the fields, a convict and felled bushes, everything grew at random, large, violently. The bathers and carrots were trying to go to the tune, the frying here, in the sun, had already littered the petals in the wind, the catchment-bells hung in anticipation of the summer heat, which would be fatal for them. These flowers were replaced by locusts from the thicket, and the beautiful day was already in oblong buds, covered with fur, as if with frost, waiting in the wings to hang yellow gramophones on the outskirts of the fields.

Here is Korolev's log. There was a muddy puddle in it. I intended to rush along it so that it splashed in all directions, but immediately remembered, took off my boots, rolled up my pants and carefully wandered over the lazy, sedge-pacified pothole, crushed by the hooves of cattle, painted with the legs of birds, the legs of animals.

I flew out of the log at a trot, and while I was putting on my shoes, I kept looking at the field that opened in front of me, and tried to remember where else I had seen him? A field that goes straight to the horizon, and in the middle of the field there are lonely large trees. Right into the field, into the bread, the road dives, quickly drying up in it, and a swallow flies over the road, chirping ...

Ah, I remembered! I saw the same field, only with yellow loaves, in a picture in the house of a school teacher, to whom my grandmother took me to enroll for the winter to study. I stared at that picture, glared at it, and the teacher asked: "Do you like it?" I shook my head, and the teacher said that the famous Russian artist Shishkin had painted it, and I thought that he had eaten a lot of cedar cones. And he could not speak because of miracles - the arable land, the land, is similar to ours, here it is, framed, but as alive!

I stopped under the thickest larch tree, lifted my head. It seemed to me that the tree, where densely, where the greenish needles were sparsely, was floating across the sky, and the falcon, which had adhered to the top of the tree, among the black, as if burnt, cones of last year, dozed, lulled by this slow and calm swimming. There was a hawk's nest in the tree, twisted at a fork between a thick branch and a trunk. Sanka somehow climbed to ruin the nest, climbed up to it, was about to throw out the wide-grained hawks, but then the hawk screamed, began to flap its wings, gouge the villain with its beak, tear with its claws - Sanka could not resist, let go. If a karachun was a destroyer, he put his shirt on a branch and okay, the seams of the canvas shirt turned out to be strong. The peasants took Sanka off the tree, podddavali, of course. Since then Sanka has red eyes, they say, blood has poured out.

The tree is the whole world! In the trunk of its hole, hollowed out by woodpeckers, in each hole someone lives, tracks: now a beetle, now a bird, now a lizard, and above - and bats. Nests are hidden in the grass, in the plexus of roots. Mouse, gopher minks go under the tree. The anthill is pushed to the trunk. There is a prickly thorn, a frozen herringbone here, there is a round green meadow near the larch. It can be seen from the bare, scraped-off roots how they wanted to reduce the clearing, to grow back, but the roots of the tree resisted the plow, did not give the clearing to be torn apart. The larch itself is hollow inside. Someone long ago lit a fire under the sky, and the barrel burned out. If the tree were not so big, it would have died long ago, but it still lived, it is difficult, with soil, but it lived, extracting food from the ground with its plowed roots and at the same time it still gave shelter to ants, mice, birds, beetles, broomsticks and all other living creatures. ...

I climbed into the coal interior of the larch, sat down on a mushroom-lip, hard as a stone, protruding from the rotten trunk. A trumpet hums and creaks in the tree. It seems to me - it complains to me with a wooden, endlessly long cry, walking along the roots from the earth. I climbed out of the black hollow and touched the trunk of a tree covered with siliceous bark, influx of sulfur, scars and cuts, healed and unhealed, those that have no strength and juice to heal from a damaged tree.

"Oh, soot! What a muddler!" But the smoke has disappeared, and the hollow does not get dirty, just one elbow and one trouser leg is stained with black. I spat on my palm, wiped the stain off my pants, and walked slowly towards the road.

For a long time a wooden groan sounded in me, audible only in the hollow of a larch. Now I know that a tree also knows how to moan and cry in an internal, inconsolable voice.

It is not far from the burnt larch to the descent to the Mana estuary. I stepped forward, and now the road went downhill between two mountains. But I turned off the road and carefully began to make my way to the steep edge of the mountain, descending a rocky angle into the Yenisei and a ribbed slope to Mana. From this steep slope you can see our arable land, our hut. For a long time I was going to look at all this from a height, but it did not work, because I traveled with other people, and they were in a hurry to work, then home from work. On the mane of Manskoy Mountain, the pine forest was undersized, with paws swirling in the wind. As if the hands of old people, there were these paws in bumps and fragile joints. Boyarka grew up here fiercely. And all the bushes were dry, ruffled and hooked. But here there were even birch forests, clean aspen forests, thin, racing to grow after the fire, which were reminded of by the black dead trees and everted. Peña and deadwood were swept over with shoots of sweet, pouring strawberries; The bruise was turning white and poured with juice, under the pines crunched small-leaved, strong lingonberry, and chamomile plastered along the slope - his favorite place here is lilac, yellow, almost purple, in some places - white, with a whole broom, as if sour cream splashed out in the talus. The grandmother does not bypass this spill of chamomile, she always picks up a "wink" for medicine. I plastered the flowers at the very root, picked up so many of them that they barely fit in my hand, and here I go, and the smell around me, like in a pharmacy or in a closet where my grandmother dries herbs, thickly dusty and smells like chamomile. especially yellow, that and look, you sneeze, as from a fierce grandfather's self-infestation.

Above the cliff, where there were no longer any trees, only a spine, meadowsweet, acacia, thorns and broods of mountain turnip stained stones. I stopped and stood until my legs got tired, then sat down, forgetting that snakes are found here - I was afraid of snakes more than anything in the world. For a while, I did not breathe at all, I just looked and looked, my heart was beating in my chest loudly and often.

For the first time I saw from above the confluence of two large rivers - Mana and Yenisei. They hurried to meet each other for a long, long time, and when they met, they flow separately, pretending that they are not interested in one another. Mana is faster than the Yenisei and lighter, although the Yenisei is also bright. A whitish seam, like a breakwater, spreading ever wider, defines the border of two waters. Yenisey splashes, pushes Mana in the side, flirts and imperceptibly presses her into the corner of the Mansky bull, as our village guys press girls against the fence when they indulge. Mana boils, spills out onto the rock, roars, but it's too late - the bull is steep and tall, Yenisei is assertive - you won't get lost in it.

Another river conquered. Sated purring under the bull, the Yenisei runs to the sea-ocean, rebellious, indomitable, sweeping away everything in the way. And what is Mana to him! He will also pick up rivers that are not such and rush away with him to the icy, midnight lands, where fate will take me too, and then I will have a chance to see my native river, a completely different, flooded floodplain, tired of the long journey. In the meantime, I look and look at rivers, mountains, forests. The arrow at the junction of Mana with the Yenisei is rocky and steep. The bedrock water has not yet subsided. The twine of the loose bank is still flooded. The rocks on the other side in the water stand where the rock begins, where its reflection cannot be seen from here. There are stripes under the rocks. Pulls, twists the water with the snouts of spruce stones.

But on the other hand, there is so much space above, above the Mana River, there is a stone crown on the arrow, outliers are scattered about, and even further away - order begins: the mountains rise in waves from the muddle of gorges, noisy rivers, and springs. There, at the top - the stopped waves of the taiga, slightly enlightened on the manes, hidden-dense in the depressions. A white cliff sparkles with a lost sail on the most humped splash of the taiga. Mysteriously, unattainably blue the distant passes, of which it’s scary to think. Between them winds, roars and thunders on the rapids of the Mana River - the breadwinner: our arable land is here, the trade is also reliable on this river. There are many animals, game, fish on Mana. There are many rapids, pebbles, mountains, rivers with enticing names: Karakush, Nagalka, Bezh, Mila, Kandynka, Tykhty. Doesn't bend. And how wisely the wild river did: in front of the mouth it took and fell steeply to the left, towards the rocky arrow, and left a gentle angle of the alluvial land. There are arable lands, huts, huts on the banks of the Mana, fields here. They run up against the mountains with the farthest paths, fringes and cleaners. Below me is the Manskaya River, it would evenly outline the border of what is permitted and does not let the mountain through itself. Farther from the huts, there, to the Mana bend, behind which the cliff whitens, it is already hilly, there is a forest, taiga, many large birches grow in the open air. People are crowding this forest, cutting down lethargic seedlings, leaving only those trees with which they could not cope. Every year, the villagers throw out the green fees of the peasant arable land on one or the other hillock, they have pushed the taiga to the Straw reach.

Stubborn people have worked on this land!

I looked for our capture. It is not difficult to find it. She is distant. Each acquisition is a repetition of that courtyard, that house that the owner maintains in the village. The house is also cut down, the courtyard is also fenced off, the same canopy, the same entrance, even the trims on the house are the same, but everything: the house, the courtyard, the windows, and the oven inside are smaller. And there are still no winter flocks, barns and baths in the courtyard, but there is one wide summer enclosure, covered with brushwood, over the brushwood with straw.

Behind our hut snakes a path along a stone goby, always wet with mold. A key is drilled out of the goby into the crack, a curved larch without a top and two alders grow above the key. The roots of the trees have been pinched by a goby, and they grow crooked, with a leaf on one side. Smoke is blowing over our hut. Grandpa and Sanka are cooking something. I immediately felt hungry. But I just can’t get away, I can’t take my eyes off the two rivers, from these mountains, shimmering in the distance, I can’t yet comprehend the immensity of the world with my childish mind.

I shook myself, shrugged my shoulders, yelled louder to scare away the astringent, incomprehensible fear that had fallen on me, almost head over heels rolled down the mountain, behind me, with a landslide clang, a gray flagstone dripped, a crumb. Overtaking the stream, round boulders bounced up ahead, which, together with a lot, plunged into the Manskaya River.

The take of perfumed chamomiles swam, a bundle of concoctions swam, agility attacked me - I ran along the cold river with laughter, caught a bundle, flowers and suddenly stopped.

Boots!

I still stood and watched the river run higher than my boots, the river swirl, the yellow-red vampires flashing in the water as live fish.

"The muddler! The idiot! I ruined my boots! I got my pants! New pants!"

I wandered ashore, took off my shoes, poured the water out of my boots, smoothed my pants with my hands and waited for my outfit to dry up and regain its festive gloss.

Long, the road from the village was tiresome. Instantly and completely imperceptibly I fell asleep to the sound of the Manskoy River. He must have slept quite a bit, because when he woke up, the boots were still damp, but the vamp was yellower and prettier - the tar was washed off them. Pants dried by the sun. They wrinkled, lost strength. I spat on my palms, smoothed my pants, put them on, smoothed them out, put on my shoes, ran along the road easily and quickly, so that the dust exploded behind me.

Grandfather was not in the hut, Sanka was not there either. Something was tapping behind the hut in the yard. I put the bundle and flowers on the table and went out into the yard. Grandfather was on his knees under a plank visor and chopping tobacco in a trough of papuka. An old shirt patched on the elbows was pulled out of his pants, shuddering on his back. Grandfather's neck is tarred by the sun. Her hair, gray with old age, hung in dangles around her neck in brown cracks. On the porches, the shirt was protruded with large shoulder blades, like a horse's.

I smoothed my hair to one side with my palm, pulled up a silk belt with tassels on my stomach and called out at once in a hoarse voice;

Grandpa!

My grandfather stopped bale, put the ax down, turned around, looked at me on his knees for a while, then got up, wiped his hands on the hem of his shirt, and pulled me to him. With a sticky hand from leaf tobacco, he ran his hand over my head. He was tall, not stooping yet, and my face reached only to his belly, to his shirt, so soaked in tobacco that it was difficult to breathe, it chilled in his nose and I wanted to sneeze. But I didn’t move, didn’t sneeze, I was quiet, like a kitten under the palm of my hand.

Sanka arrived on horseback, tanned, trimmed by his grandfather, in darned trousers and a shirt, as I guessed from the sweeping stitch - also repaired by grandfather. Sanka is Sanka! He only drove the horse, he didn’t say hello yet, but he dumbfounded me:

Monk in new pants! - He also wanted to add something, but he held his tongue, he was ashamed of his grandfather. But he will say maliciously, then he will say when the grandfather is gone. It is enviable because Sanka - he himself never sewed new pants, and boots, and even with new vamp - and in a dream he never dreamed.

It turned out that I was in time for dinner. They ate a fight - crumpled potatoes baked with milk and butter, ate haryuz and fried paths - Sanka pulled on in the evening, after that they drank tea brewed with a typical root, with grandmother's soaked stew.

Did you swim on the Shangakh? - Sanka asked curiously.

The grandfather did not ask anything.

Swam! - I sent off Sanka.

After dinner I went down to the key, washed the dishes and brought some water along the way. I put chamomiles in an old canteen with a broken edge; they were already shriveled, but soon rose, curled up in dense greenery, littered with yellow dust and petals on the table.

Huh! How exactly a girl! - Sanka began to sneer again. But the grandfather, who was laying down to rest on the stove after dinner, cut him short:

Don't hook the guy. Since he has a soul for a flower, it means that such is his soul. This means that he has his own meaning in this, his meaning, which is incomprehensible to us. Here.

The gadfly will subside, we will chase the graze. Boots and pants are gone.

We went out into the yard, and I asked:

WHY is grandfather so talkative today?

I don’t know, ”Sanka shrugged his shoulders. - I must have done it with such a disheveled grandson. - Sanka picked his teeth with a fingernail and, looking at me with red, gray eyes, asked: - WHAT are we going to do, monk in new trousers?

If you tease me, I’ll leave.

Okay, okay, what a touchy one! For fun, after all.

We ran into the field. Sanka showed me where he harrowed, said that grandfather Ilya taught him how to plow, and added that he would quit school, as he became more skilled at plowing, would start earning money, buy himself not track pants, but cloth pants - and he would give up.

These words finally convinced me - Sanka stuck. But what would follow - I did not guess, because there was a simpleton and remained.

Behind a strip of densely growing oats, there was an oblong barrel near the road. There was almost no water left in it. Along the edges, smooth and black as pitch, the dirt was covered with a cobweb of cracks. In the middle, near a puddle the size of a hand, a big frog sat in mournful silence and wondered where to go now. In Mana and the Manskoy river, the water is fast - it will knock it belly up and carry it away. There is a swamp, but it is far away - you will disappear while you jump. The frog suddenly leapt to the side, flopped at my feet - it was Sanka who rushed along the basin, so briskly that I did not even have time to gasp. He sat down on the other side of the barrel and wiped his feet on a burdock.

And you are weak!

Me? Weak-oh? - I zapetushilsya, but immediately remembered that more than once fell on Sankin's uda, and it is impossible to count how many troubles I had through this, troubles with all sorts of consequences. "Nah, brother, I'm not so small that you cheat me like you used to!"

Just pick flowers! - Sanka itched.

"Flowers! So what! Is that bad? The grandfather was talking like ..." But then I remembered how people in the village are contemptuous of people who pick flowers and are engaged in all such nonsense. In the village of hunters-hunters, there is a lot of fun - an abyss. On the arable land, old men, women and children manage. The peasants on Mana are all firing and fishing with guns, they also get pine nuts and sell their booty in the city. Flowers as a gift to wives are brought from the bazaar, flowers from shavings, blue, red, white - rustle. The women respectfully put the flowers of the market on the corners and cling to the icons. And in order to pick fry, starodubs or saranoks - this is what the peasants never do and the children of their infancy are taught to tease and despise people like Vasya-Pole, the shoemaker Zherebtsov, the stove-maker Makhuntsov and any other self-propelled vehicles that are greedy for entertainment, but unsuitable for hunting.

And Sanka there too! He won't be busy with flowers. He is already a plowman, a sower, a worker-o-otnik! And I, then, am so-so! You idiot, then? Dirty? So I inflamed myself, so angry, that with a brave boom I rushed across the barrel.

In the middle of the hole, where the pensive frog was sitting, I at once, with distinct clarity, realized that I was again on the oud. I still tried to jerk once or twice, but I saw Sankin's spreading traces from a puddle to the side - a shiver went through me. Eating with his gaze Sanka's rounded face with those red, as if a drunkard's eyes, he said:

Gad!

He said and stopped fighting.

Sanka raged above me. He ran around the barrel, jumped, stood on his arms:

Aa-ah, I got myself into it! A-ha-ha-a, boasted! A-ha-ha-a, a monk in new pants! Pants ha ha ha! Boots something ho-ho-ho!

I clenched my fists and bit my lips to keep from crying. I knew that Sanka was just waiting for me to unstuck, to whimper, and he would completely tear me apart, helpless, trapped. Feet is cold. I was sucked further and further, but I did not ask Sanka to pull me out, and did not cry. Sanka was still mocking me, but soon he got bored with this occupation, he was satiated with pleasure.

Say: "Dear, pretty Sanya, help me for Christ's sake!" Maybe I can drag you out!

No!

Oh no ?! Sit until tomorrow.

I gritted my teeth and looked for a stone or a block. There was nothing. The frog again crawled out of the grass and looked at me with annoyance, they say, they have recaptured the last refuge, the evil ones.

Get out of my sight! Go away, you bastard, better! Go away! - I shouted and began to throw handfuls of mud at Sanka.

Sanka left. I wiped my hands on my shirt. Above the bochazhina, on the border, henbane leaves stirred - Sanka hid in them. From the pit I can only see this henbane, the top of the burdock, and even part of the road can be seen, the one that rises to Manskaya Mountain. Until quite recently, I walked along this road happy, admiring the area and did not know any basin, did not know any grief. And now I'm stuck in the mud and I'm waiting. What am I waiting for?

Sanka got out of the weeds, apparently, the wasps drove him out, maybe he didn't have enough patience. Eating some kind of grass. There must be a bunch. He always chews on something - a pot-bellied live-throat!

Are we going to sit like that?

No, I will soon fall. Legs are already numb.

Sanka stopped chewing on the bunch, carelessness flew from his face, he must understand, he begins to understand what this is going on.

But you bastard! he shouted, pulling off his pants. - Just fall!

I try to stay on my feet, but they are so tired below the knees that I can hardly feel them. Everything shakes me from the cold, shakes from fatigue.

Headless nag! - climbed into the mud and cursed Sanka. - How much I inflated him, he inflates all the same! - Sanka tried to get close to me from one side, on the other hand - it did not work. Viscous. Finally he approached, yelled: - Give me a hand! Let's! I'm leaving! I’m really leaving. You will disappear here along with new pants! ..

I didn’t give him my hand. He grabbed me by the collar, pulled me, but he himself went with a stake into the liquid depth of the pit. He threw me, rushed to the shore, barely freeing his legs. His tracks were immediately covered with black liquid, bubbles appeared in the tracks, bursting with a thorn and gurgling.

Sanka on the shore. He looked at me frightened, silently, trying to figure something out. I looked past him. My legs were completely broken, the dirt seemed to me already a soft bed. I wanted to sink into it. But I’m still alive to the waist and I’m a little thinking - I’ll go down and I can easily choke.

Hey, why are you silent?

I didn’t say anything to the destroyer Sanka.

Follow grandpa, you bastard! Wait, I’ll fall.

Sanka whined, swore like a drunken man, obscenely and rushed to pull me out of the mud. He almost pulled off my shirt, began tugging at my hand so that I roared in pain and began poking Sanka in the face with his fist, pulled out once or twice. Further I was not sucked in, I must have reached with my feet hard ground, maybe frozen ground. Neither the strength nor the ingenuity was enough to get me out of Sanka. He was completely confused and did not know what to do, how to be.

Follow grandpa, you bastard!

Chattering teeth, Sanka pulled his pants right on his dirty feet.

Darling, don't fall! - first whispered, then shouted in a voice that was not his own, and rushed to the hut. - Not pa-a-da-a-ah, darling ... Not a-a-a-ah-ah! ..

His words were barking and barking. Sanka roared with fright. "So you, snake, should!"

Anger increased my strength. I raised my head and saw two people descending from the Manskoy Mountain. Someone is leading someone by the hand. So they disappeared behind the willows, in the Manskoy River. They must be drinking or washing themselves. Such a river - bubbly, fast. No one can walk past her.

Or maybe they sat down to rest? Then the lost business.

But from behind the mound a head appeared in a white kerchief, even at first only a white kerchief, then a forehead, then a face, then another person became visible - it was a girl. Who is coming? Who? Yes, go quickly! Move the legs exactly inanimate!

I did not take my eyes off the two people walking steadily along the road. Whether by the walk, by the handkerchief, by the gesture of the hand pointing to the girl directly at me, most likely - on the field behind the barrel, I recognized my grandmother.

Bah-a-abonka! Mi-Ilenka-ah! .. Oh, ba-abonka-ah! - I roared and fell into the mud. Before me were the slopes of this damned pit washed by water. Even the henbane is not visible, even the frog was jumping somewhere.

Ba-a-a-a-a-a! Ba-a-abonka-ah-ah! I'm drowning! Oh, I'm drowning!

I feel sick, I feel sick! Oh, my heart felt How did you get there, asp? - I heard the cry of my grandmother above me. - Oh, it was not in vain that it sucked in the stomach! .. But who made you think? Oh, rather!

And still the words reached me, thoughtfully and condemningly said by Levont'evskaya Tanya:

Wow, aren’t the leshaks sent you there ?!

A board slapped, another one, I felt how they grabbed me and, like a rusty nail from a log, slowly pulled, heard how my boots were removed, wanted to shout, but did not have time. Grandfather pulled me out of my boots, out of the mud. Stretching his legs with difficulty, he backed up to the bank.

Shoes! Boots! - showed the grandmother into the pit, where the agitated mud was swaying, all covered with bubbles and moldy greenery. With a hopeless wave of his hand, the grandfather climbed to the border and began to wipe his feet with burdocks. My grandmother was shaking hands with handfuls of dirt from my new trousers and triumphantly, as if proving to someone, spoke out:

No-no, my heart cannot be overwhelmed! Toko this blood-drinker is beyond the threshold, it ached and ached. And you, old, where were you looking? Where have you been? If the little robber had gone?

I didn’t bother ...

I lay with my nose buried in the grass and cried out of pity for myself, out of resentment. Grandmother began to rub my feet with her palms. Tanya fumbled on my nose with a burdock, cursed together with my grandmother:

Oh, convict Shanka! I shake it off, - and wagged her finger into the distance: - Tyatka, shur-shur-shur! - Do you understand what Tanya has? It rustles like a wasp in honey.

I looked where she was threatening, and noticed the swirling dust in the distance. Sanka scratched with all his blades from the hut to the river to take refuge in the storms until better times. Now he will truly live like a fugitive forest robber.

For the fourth day I have been lying on the stove. My legs are wrapped in an old blanket. My grandmother rubbed them three times a day with an infusion of anemone, ant oil and something else pungent and smelly, and soldered me with chamomile and St. John's wort. My legs burned and pinched so that it was time to howl, but my grandmother assured me that this was how it should be, which meant that my legs were healed, since they felt a burning sensation and pain, and she talked about how and whom she had cured in due time and what Thanks were to her for that.

Grandma could not catch Sanka. As I guessed, my grandfather took Sanka out from under the planned retribution. He then dressed up Sanka at night - to graze the cattle, then he sent him into the forest with a touch. Grandmother had to vilify grandfather and me, but we are accustomed to this, grandfather only groaned and smoked more cigarettes, I giggled into the pillow and winked at my grandfather.

My grandmother washed my pants, my boots remained in the barrel. Sorry for the boots. Pants are also not what they were. The fabric does not shine, the blue has faded, the pants faded at once, faded, like flowers plucked from the ground. "Eh, Sanka, Sanka!" - I sighed - I felt sorry for Sanka.

Are you getting rid of the remission again? - the grandmother climbed up on the stove, hearing my groaning.

It's hot here.

The heat of the bone does not ache. Lying down a fool - three boils on one side. Be patient. And then you will become degraded - and she herself to the window, Put her hand, looks out. - And where did he get rid of this foe! Look, good people! I said to myself: neither from a stone of fruit, nor from a rogue of good! She is an alliance against me! .. He himself gives a milestone to the robber, they will save me from me.

Here - misfortune to misfortune - the grandfather missed the chicken. This motley hen has been striving to produce chickens for three years already. But my grandmother believed that there were more suitable chickens for this business, she bathed the pest in cold water, whipped it with a broom, forcing him to lay eggs. The Corydalis, on the other hand, showed a downright soldier's stamina: somewhere quietly she laid eggs and, not looking at her grandmother's prohibition, buried herself and incubated her offspring.

In the evening it lit up in the window, flashed, crackled - it was behind the key, on the river bank, a hut made by hunters was laid up in the spring. From the hut with a cluck fluttered our crested, not touching the ground, flew up to the hut, all disheveled, clucking, jerking with its damaged goiter and head.

The inquiry began, and it turned out: Sanka took the tobacco from his grandfather's trough, smoked in the hut and sank a spark.

He will burn the catch, he will not blink! - the grandmother was noisy, but she was noisy somehow, at the end, her heart must have softened because of the chicken, maybe, and boiled over with anger inside herself. In a word, she told her grandfather that Sanka would not hide anymore, would spend the night at home, and rushed off to the village - she had a lot of things to do there.

Of course, she's always up to her throat, but the main concern is that without her in the village, as without a commander in a war, there is confusion, confusion, confusion, everything has gone astray, and it is necessary to direct the formation and discipline as soon as possible.

Whether from the silence, whether from the fact that my grandmother had made peace with Sanka, I fell asleep and woke up at sunset, all light and relieved, fell down from the stove and almost screamed. In the very same cage with a broken edge, a huge bouquet of crimson mountain sarans with curled petals blazed.

Summer! A full summer has already come!

Sanka stood at the lintel, circling on the floor with saliva through the hole between his teeth. He chewed sulfur, and he accumulated a lot of saliva.

Take a bite of sulfur?

Take a bite.

Sanka bit off a piece of larch sulfur. I, too, began to chew it with a snap.

The larch was washed ashore from the rafting, and I picked it up. - Sanka circled saliva from the stove and right up to the window. I circled too, but it hit my chest.

Do your legs hurt?

Just a little. I'll run tomorrow.

Kharuz began to take well on the spout and on the cockroach. Soon he will go to the filly.

Take me?

So Katerina Petrovna let you go!

She's not there!

Will snuggle!

I will ask for leave.

Well, if you ask for time off ... - Sanka turned to the courtyard, even sniffed, then crawled to my ear:

Will you smoke? Here! I had my grandfather mock. - He showed a handful of tobacco, a piece of paper and a fragment from a matchbox. - To smoke the world! Heard how I was a salash yesterday? The chicken was flying with a turman! Hilarious! Katerina Petrovna is baptized: "Save me, save Christ!" Hilarious!

Oh, Sanka, Sanka! - completely forgiving him everything, I repeated my grandmother's words. - Do not demolish your daring head! ..

Nishtya-aak! - Sanka dismissed with relief and took out a splinter from his heel. A drop of blood rolled out like a cowberry. Sanka spat on his palm and rubbed his heel.

I looked at the tenderly crimson rings of the sarans, at their stamens like hammers sticking out of the flowers, listened to the busy swallows fidgeting in the attic, talking among themselves. One swallow is dissatisfied with something, says and says and will scream, as if Aunt Avdotya at her girls when they come home from the walk, or at her husband Terenty when he comes from the voyage.

In the courtyard, grandfather poked with an ax and coughed. Behind the palisade of the front garden, the blue patch of the river is visible. I put on my now habitual, familiar pants, in which you can sit down anywhere and on anything.

Where are you going? - Sanka shook his finger. - You can't! Grandma Katerina didn't tell me!

I didn’t answer him, went to the table and touched the red-hot saranoks that didn’t burn my hand.

Look, grandmother will swear. Look, he's up! Brave! - Sanka muttered, distracted me, spoke his teeth. - Then you will start to sing ...

What a kind grandfather, he plucked a saranok for me, - I helped Sanka to get out of a difficult situation. Little by little, little by little, he staggered out of the hut, pleased with this outcome of the case. I slowly made my way out into the sun. My head was spinning, my legs were still trembling and clicking. Under the awning, grandfather laid aside the ax with which he was cutting the Lithuanian tree, and looked at me as soon as he could look - everything is so clear to say with a glance. Sanka was cleaning our Hawk with a scraper, and that, apparently, ticklish, and he trembled with his skin, jerked his leg.

N-n-but-oh, you, dance with me! - shouted at gelding Sanka. And why shout at a horse, which is not harder and more patient in the village, which even a grandmother spoils, sometimes with a loaf of bread, and says with a sneer that our horse lived with seven priests, seven years old, and all seven years old ... ...

Old, old Hawk! So what? And an old grandfather, but better than him there is no man in the world. The price is not for years, but for business ...

How warm around, green, noisy, fun! Swifts circling above the river, falling to meet their shadow on the water. The surplus is chilling, the wasps are buzzing, the logs are racing through the water. Soon it will be possible to swim - the Lydia-bathing suits will come. Maybe they'll let me swim, too. The fever didn’t come back, as soon as my head was blown around and my legs ache in the joints. Well, they won't let me, so I myself am slowly buying myself. With Sanka I will go to the river and bathe.

Sanka and I, holding on to the embankment on both sides, led the Hawk to the river. He walked down a stony goby, cautiously spreading his forelegs on a bench, braking himself with worn, nail-pierced hooves. He wandered into the water, stopped, touched the reflection in the water with flabby lips, as if he had kissed the same old piebald horse.

We splashed water on him. The horse shuddered with its skin on its back and, loudly thumping its hooves on the stones, shaking its bearded head, wandered inward, we followed him, groaning, holding on to the mane and tail, dragged. Hawk walked out onto a pebbled promontory, stopped belly-deep in the water and surrendered to the will of the current.

We scraped the back, neck, chest covered with labor calluses with our bare bare bones. The hawk trembled with his skin in joyful languor, stepped over his legs and even tried to play, grabbed us by the collars with his pendulous lip.

D-don't spoil! we shouted loudly. But Hawk didn’t obey, and we didn’t expect him to obey, we shouted just like that, out of habit, at the horse.

They strove to sit on the back of the horse in order to peck the flies swarming on the scuffs of the horse's skin, or to grab a bloodsucking horsefly that was soldered to the horse's rump.

Standing on the bull-calf was a grandfather in a released shirt, barefoot. The breeze ruffled his hair, wiggled his beard, rinsed his unbuttoned shirt over his convex, forked chest. And the grandfather of the Russian hero reminded him during the campaign, which took a break - the hero stopped to brighten his native land, breathe its healing air.

How good it is! The hawk is swimming. Grandfather stands on a stone goby, he has forgotten himself, summer has rolled up in the noise, bustle, and boring chores. Every bird, every midge, flea, ant is busy with business; The berries are about to go, mushrooms. The cucumbers will soon fill up, they will start digging in the potatoes, there will be another vegetable garden ripe for the table, there the bread will rustle with a ripe ear - the harvest will do. You can live in this world! And the clown with him, with pants and boots too. I'll make some more. I will earn.

- Well, what are you, what are you! - my grandfather reassured me, wiping away tears from my face with a big hard hand. - Why are you lying hungry? Ask for forgiveness ... Go, go, - my grandfather gently pushed me in the back.

Holding my pants with one hand, I pressed the other to my eyes, stepped into the hut and started:

- I am more ... I am more ... I am more ... - And I could not say anything further.

- Okay, wash and sit down to crack! - still implacable, but without a thunderstorm, without thunders, said the grandmother.

I washed myself obediently. For a long time and very carefully he wiped himself with a towel, now and then shuddering from the sobs that had not yet passed, and sat down at the table. Grandfather was busy in the kitchen, reeling the reins on his hand, doing something else. Feeling his invisible and reliable support, I took the crumbs from the table and began to eat dry food. Grandmother poured milk into the glass in one fell swoop and set the bowl in front of me with a clatter.

- Look what a meek one! Look how quiet he is! And he won't ask for milk! ..

My grandfather blinked at me: be patient. I knew without him: God forbid now to contradict my grandmother or do something wrong, not at her discretion. She must be discharged, must express everything that has accumulated in her, must take her soul away.

For a long time my grandmother denounced me and put me to shame. I bellowed again in repentance. She yelled at me again.

But then the grandmother spoke out. The grandfather has gone somewhere. I sat, smoothed the patch on my pants, pulled the threads out of it. And when he raised his head, he saw in front of him ...

I closed my eyes and opened my eyes again. He closed his eyes again, opened it again. A white horse with a pink mane galloped on a scrapped kitchen table, as if on a huge land with arable land, meadows and roads, on pink hooves.

- Take it, take it, what are you looking at? You look, but even when you omman grandmother ...

How many years have passed since then! How many events have passed! And I still can't forget my grandmother's gingerbread - that wonderful horse with a pink mane.

Monk in new pants

I have been ordered to sort out the potatoes. The grandmother determined the norm, or harnessed, as she called it. This harness is marked by two rutabags, lying on the one and the other side of the oblong bottom, and to these rutabes is the same as to the other bank of the Yenisei. When I get to the rutabagas, God only knows. Maybe I won't be alive by that time!

In the basement, there is an earthen, grave silence, mold on the walls, and a sugary kurzhak on the ceiling. I just want to take it on my tongue. From time to time, for no reason at all, it crumbles from above, gets behind the collar and melts. Also good is not enough. In the pit itself, where the perch with vegetables and tubs of cabbage, cucumbers and saffron milk caps, the kurzhak hangs on threads of a cobweb, and when I look up, it seems to me that I am in a fairy-tale kingdom, and when I look down, my heart bleeds and big, big longing takes me.

All around here are potatoes, potatoes. And you need to sort them out, potatoes. The rotten one is supposed to be thrown into a wicker box, a large one - into sacks, and a smaller one - to be thrown into the corner of this huge, like a courtyard, bottom-hole in which I sit, maybe all day, and my grandmother has forgotten about me, or maybe I have been sitting for a whole month and I'll die soon, and then everyone will know how to leave a child here alone, and even an orphan, besides.

Of course, I’m not a child and I’m not working in vain. The larger potatoes are selected for sale in the city, and my grandmother promised to use the proceeds to buy manufactures and sew me new trousers with a pocket.

I see myself clearly in these pants, smart, handsome. My hand is in my pocket, and I walk around the village and do not take out my hand, and if I need to put something - a grandma's bat or money - I only put it in my pocket, and no value will fall out of my pocket and will not be lost.

Pants with a pocket, and even new ones, I have never had. They alter everything for me. The bag will be dyed and re-sewn, a woman's skirt that has come out of socks, or something else. Once they even used half-shawls. They painted it and sewed it, and it faded with sweat, and the cells became visible. All the Levont'ev guys laughed at me. Let them cheer!

I wonder what they will be, pants, blue or black? And will they have a pocket - outside or inside? Outdoor, of course. The grandmother will start messing with the internal! She has no time for everything. Relatives must be bypassed. Tell everyone. General!

Here she rushed off somewhere again, and I sit here to work!

At first I was scared in this deep and dumb basement. It all seemed to me as if someone was hiding in the gloomy, rotten corners, and I was afraid to move and was afraid to cough. And then I took a small lamp without glass left by my grandmother and shone it in the corners. There was nothing there, except for a greenish-white mold that covered the logs with shreds, and earth dug up by mice, and rutabagas, which from a distance seemed to me to be severed human heads. I shook one rutabaga over the sweaty wooden frame with kurzhak veins in the grooves, and the frame responded in the uterus: "Oo-oo-oo-oo-ah!"

- Aha! - I said. - That's it, brother! It doesn't hurt me! ..

I also took with me small beets, carrots and from time to time threw them into the corner, into the walls and scared away everyone who could be there from evil spirits, from brownies and other shantrap.

The word "shantrapa" is imported in our village, and what it means, I do not know. But I like it. "Shantrapa! Shantrapa!" All the bad words, according to my grandmother's conviction, were dragged into our village by the Betekhtins, and without them, we would not even know how to swear.

I've already eaten three carrots; rubbed them on the shank of the wire rod and ate. Then he put his hand under the wooden mugs, scraped out a handful of cold, resilient cabbage and ate it too. Then I caught the cucumber and ate it too. And he also ate mushrooms from a tub, as low as a tub. Now I have a rumble and toss and turn in my belly. These are carrots, cucumber, cabbage and mushrooms quarreling among themselves. Close to them in one belly.

If only my stomach would relax or my legs would hurt. I straighten my legs, hear my knees crunch and click, but nothing hurts.

Really pretend?

And the pants? Who will buy me pants and for what? Pants with a pocket, new and already without straps and maybe even with a strap!

My hands begin to quickly and quickly scatter potatoes: a large one into a yawning open sack; small - in the corner; rotten - in a box. Fuck, bang! Tarabah!

- Twist, twist, twist! - I cheer myself up and yell at the whole basement:

They tried one girl,
She was a child of a year-a-a-mi-and-and ...

This song is new, alien. She, by all appearances, was also dragged into the village by the Betekhtins. I remembered only these words from it, and I really liked them. I know how a girl is judged. In the summer, grandmother with other old women will go out on the blockade in the evening, and here they are judging, here they are judging: both Uncle Levontiya, and aunt Vasya, and Avdotya's maiden - the cheerful Agashka!

But I won’t understand why grandmother and all the old women shake their heads, spit and blow their nose?

- Twist, twist, twist!

They tried one girl,
She was a child of the year-a-ami-and-and-and ...

The potato flies in different directions and bounces. One rotten potato got into a good one. Remove it! You can't cheat the buyer. He puffed out the strawberries - what good happened? Shame and shame are solid. And now you come across a rotten potato - he, the buyer, sbryndit! If he doesn’t take potatoes, it means that you won’t get any money or goods, so you won’t get pants! Who am I without pants? I'm a shantrap without pants! Go without pants, just like Levont'ev's guys, everyone strives to slap on the bare bottom, such is his purpose: if you are naked, you will not be able to resist, you will spank.

But I'm not afraid of anything, no shantrap!
Shantrapa-ah, shan-tra-pa-ah-ah ...

I sing, open the door and look at the steps from the basement. There are twenty-eight of them. I already counted for a long time. My grandmother taught me to count to a hundred, and I counted everything that could be counted. The upper door to the basement is slightly open. My grandmother opened it a little, so that it would not be so scary for me here. Still a good person, my grandmother! General, of course, but since she was so ugly, you can't change it.

Above the door, to which a tunnel white from kurzhak leads, hung with threads of white fringe, I notice an icicle. A tiny icicle, the size of a mouse's tail, but a soft kitten immediately stirred in my heart.

Spring is coming soon. It will be warm. The first May will be! Everyone will celebrate, walk, sing songs. And I will be eight years old, and everyone will stroke my head, regret it, treat me to sweets. And my grandmother will definitely sew my pants on May Day.

- Got drunk! - I confirm. - Into the trolley ... They tried one girl ...

- My mothers! And he was dressed all over like a pig! - Grandma squeezes my nose into the apron, rubs my cheeks. - Get some soap on you. - And pushes in the back: - Go to dinner. Grandpa is waiting.

Victor Astafiev. Collected works in fifteen volumes. Volume 4.
Krasnoyarsk, "Offset", 1997

Monk in new pants

I have been ordered to sort out the potatoes. Grandma determined the norm, or harnessed,
as she called the task. This harness is marked by two rutabags lying on that and
on the other side of the oblong bottom, and to the trousers in those is the same as to
the other bank of the Yenisei. When I get to the rutabagas, God only knows.
Maybe I won't be alive by that time!
In the basement there is an earthen, grave silence, mold on the walls, on the ceiling
sugary kurzhak. I just want to take it on my tongue. From time to time he does not
for no apparent reason, it crumbles from above, falls behind the collar, sticks to the body and melts.
Also good is not enough. In the pit itself, where the vines with vegetables and tubs of cabbage,
cucumbers and saffron milk caps, the kurzhak hangs on the threads of a cobweb, and when I look up,
it seems to me that I am in a fairy-tale kingdom, in a distant state, and
when I look down my heart bleeds and takes me
big, big melancholy.
All around here are potatoes. And you need to sort them out, potatoes. Rotten
it is supposed to be thrown into a wicker box, large - into bags, smaller - toss
into the corner of this huge, like a courtyard, bottom section, in which I sit, maybe a whole
a month and I'll die soon, and then everyone will know how to leave the child here alone,
and an orphan, too.
Of course, I am no longer a child and I am not working in vain. Bigger potatoes
selected for sale in the city. Grandmother made a promise on the proceeds
buy manufactories and sew me new pants with a pocket.
I see myself clearly in these pants, smart, handsome. My hand is in
pocket, and I walk around the village and do not take out my hand, if necessary, put -
bat-grandma or money - I only put in my pocket, from my pocket there is no
the value will not drop out or be lost.
Pants with a pocket, and even new ones, I have never had. All for me
alter the old. The bag will be dyed and re-sewn, a woman's skirt that has come out of socks,
or something else. Once they even used half-shawls. Painted it and
sewn, he shed sweat and it became visible cells. Made fun of me all
Levont'ev guys. Let them cheer!
I wonder what they will be, pants, blue or black? And pocket
will they have some kind - external or internal? Outdoor, of course. Will become
grandma mess with the inner! She has no time for everything. Relatives must be bypassed. Specify
everyone. General!
So I rushed off somewhere again, and I sit here, work hard.
was in this deep and silent basement. Everything seemed as if in gloomy rotten
Someone hid in the corners, and I was afraid to move and I was afraid to cough. Later
grew bolder, took a small lamp without glass left by his grandmother, and
shone in the corners. There was nothing but a greenish-white mold
with rags of sealed logs, and earth dug by mice, and rutabagas, which
from a distance they seemed to me to be severed human heads.

I closed my eyes and opened my eyes again. He closed his eyes again, opened it again. A white horse with a pink mane galloped on a scrapped kitchen table, as if on a huge land, with arable land, meadows and roads, on pink hooves.

- Take it, take it, what are you looking at? You look, but even when you omman the baushka ...

How many years have passed since then! How many events have passed. There is no grandfather alive, no grandmother, and my life is on the decline, and I still cannot forget grandmother's gingerbread - that wonderful horse with a pink mane.

I have been ordered to sort out the potatoes. The grandmother determined the norm, or harnessed, as she called the task. This harness is marked by two rutabags, lying on one and the other side of the oblong bottom, and to the rutabes of those is the same as to the other bank of the Yenisei. When I get to the rutabagas, God only knows. Maybe I won't be alive by that time!

In the basement, there is an earthen, grave silence, mold on the walls, and a sugary kurzhak on the ceiling. I just want to take it on my tongue. From time to time, for no reason at all, it crumbles from above, falls into the collar, sticks to the body and melts. Also good is not enough. In the pit itself, where the perch with vegetables and tubs of cabbage, cucumbers and saffron milk caps, the kurzhak hangs on the threads of a cobweb, and when I look up, it seems to me that I am in a fairy-tale kingdom, in a distant state, and when I look down, my heart my blood bleeds and takes me a great, great melancholy.

All around here are potatoes. And you need to sort them out, potatoes. The rotten one is supposed to be thrown into a wicker box, a large one - into sacks, a smaller one - thrown into the corner of this huge, like a courtyard, bottom hole in which I sit, maybe a whole month and I'll die soon, and then everyone will know how to leave a child here alone, yes an orphan, too.

Of course, I am no longer a child and I am not working in vain. The larger potatoes are selected for sale in the city. My grandmother promised to use the proceeds to buy manufactures and sew me new trousers with a pocket.

I see myself clearly in these pants, smart, handsome. My hand is in my pocket, and I walk around the village and do not take out my hand, if I need to, put it - a grandma's bat or money - I only put it in my pocket, no value will fall out of my pocket and will not be lost.

Pants with a pocket, and even new ones, I have never had. They change everything for me. The bag will be dyed and re-sewn, a woman's skirt that has come out of socks, or something else. Once they even used half-shawls. They painted it and sewed it, it faded with sweat and the cells became visible. All the Levont'ev guys laughed at me. Let them cheer!

I wonder what they will be, pants, blue or black? And will they have a pocket - outside or inside? Outdoor, of course. The grandmother will begin to fiddle with the inner! She has no time for everything. Relatives must be bypassed. Tell everyone. General!

Here I rushed off somewhere again, and I sit here, work! At first I was scared in this deep and dumb basement. It all seemed as if someone had hidden in the gloomy, rotten corners, and I was afraid to move and I was afraid to cough. Then he grew bolder, took a small lamp without glass, left by his grandmother, and shone in the corners. There was nothing there, except for a greenish-white mold that covered up logs with shreds, and earth dug by mice, and rutabagas, which from a distance seemed to me to be severed human heads. I fucked one rutabaga on a sweaty wooden frame with kurzhak veins in the grooves, and the frame responded in its uterus: “Oooh-ah-ah!”

- Aha! - I said. - That's it, brother! It doesn't hurt me! ..

I also took with me small beets, carrots and from time to time threw them into the corner, into the walls and scared away everyone who could be there from evil spirits, from brownies and other shantrap.

The word “shantrapa” is imported in our village, and I don’t know what it means. But I like it. “Shantrapa! Shantrapa! " All the bad words, according to the grandmother's conviction, were dragged into our village by the Verekhtins, and if they were not with us, they would not even know how to swear.

I already ate three carrots, rubbed them on the shank of the wire rod and ate them. Then he put his hands under the wooden mugs, scraped out a handful of cold, resilient cabbage and ate it too. Then I caught the cucumber and ate it too. And he also ate some mushrooms from a tub, low as a tub. Now I have a rumble and toss and turn in my belly. These are carrots, cucumbers, cabbage and mushrooms quarreling among themselves. Close to them in one belly, we eat, we do not grieve, even if the stomach relaxed. The hole in the mouth is drilled through, there is nowhere and nothing to hurt. Maybe your legs will cramp? I straightened my leg, crunches in it, clicks, but nothing hurts. After all, when it is not necessary, it hurts so much. Pretend, or what? And the pants? Who will buy me pants and for what? Pants with a pocket, new and without straps, and even with a strap!

My hands begin to quickly and quickly scatter potatoes: large - into a yawning sack, small - into a corner, rotten - into a box. Fuck, bang! Tarabah!

- Twist, twirl, twist! - I cheer myself up, and since only the priest and the rooster do not sing, and I drank, pulled me to the song.

They tried one girl,

She was a child of the year-am-and-and-and ...

I shouted with a shake. This song is new, alien.

She, by all appearances, was also brought to the village by the Verekhtins. I remembered only these words from it, and I really liked them. Well, after we had a new daughter-in-law - Nyura, a daring songstress, I pricked up my ear, in a grandmother's way - naustauril, and remembered the whole city song. Further there, in the song, it is said for what the girl was tried. She fell in love with a man. Mushshin, hoping that he is a good man, but he turned out to be a betrayer. Well, she endured, the girl endured betrayal, took a sharp knife from the window, "and gave him a white breast."

How much can you endure, in fact ?!

Grandmother, listening to me, raised her apron to her eyes:

- Passions, what passions! Where are we, Vitka, going?

I explained to my grandmother that a song is a song and we are not going anywhere.

- No-et, guy, we're going to the edge, that's what. Since a woman with a knife on a peasant, that's all, that's it, guy, a complete coup, the last, therefore, the limit has come. All that remains is to pray for salvation. Here I myself have a more self-willed devil, and when will we quarrel, but with an ax, with a knife at my husband? .. Yes, God save us and have mercy. No-et, dear comrades, the collapse of the way of life, the violation of the order indicated by God.

In our village, not only a girl is being tried. And the girls get to be healthy! In the summer, grandmother and other old women will go out on the heap, and here they are judging, here they are judging: both Uncle Levontiya, and Aunt Vasenya, and Avdotya's maiden Agashka, who brought a present to her dear mother in a hem!

But I won’t understand: why do the old women shake their heads, spit and blow their nose? A present - is it bad? A present is good! Here my grandmother will bring me a present. Pants!

- Twist, twirl, twist!

They tried one girl,

She was a child of the year-a-ami-and-and-and ...

The potato flies in different directions, and bounces, everything goes as it should, according to grandmother's adage again: "He who eats soon, works quickly!" Wow, quick! One rotten potato got into a good one. Remove it! You can't cheat the buyer. He puffed out the strawberries - what good happened? Shame and shame! If you come across a rotten potato, he, the buyer, is sbryndit. If he doesn’t take potatoes, it means that you will not receive either money, or goods, and pants. Who am I without pants? I'm a shantrap without pants. Go without pants, just as everyone strives to slap Levont'ev's guys on the bare bottom - that's his purpose, since you're naked - you can't resist, you'll slap.

Shan-tra-pa-a, shan-tra-apa-ah-ah ...

Opening the sash, I look at the basement steps. There are twenty-eight of them. I already counted for a long time. My grandmother taught me to count to a hundred, and I counted everything that could be counted. The upper door to the basement is slightly ajar, so that I would not be so scared here. Still a good person is a grandmother! General, of course, but since she was so ugly, you can't change it.