Читать бесплатно онлайн книгу Shacklesавтор S. Skitalec
S. Skitalec
Shackles
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© S. Skitalec, 2019
It is devoted to people unsatisfied, grieving for “the best share”, sharply feeling social oppression. As the writer who was close knowing life of workers the Wanderer managed to imprint spiritual power, moral purity, precise mind and “fantastic talent” of the Russian people in the books.
ISBN 978-5-4496-9410-2
Created with Ridero smart publishing system
Contents
- Shackles
- PART ONE
- I
- II
- III
- IV
- V
- VI
- VII
- VIII
- IX
- X
- XI
- XII
- XIII
- PART SECOND
- I
- II
- III
- IV
- V
- VI
- VII
- VIII
- IX
- PART THIRD
- I
- II
- III
- IV
- V
- VI
- VII
- VIII
- IX
- EPILOGUE
PART ONE
I
Solar, cheerful morning of early spring. Shirokaya Street of the big village is full of liquid dirt, pools and the spring murmuring streamlets. From a distance, from a high belltower of rural church, the joyful ringing of easter bells rushes. At the corner of the wide church area above descent to the river there is a small timbered lodge with a high porch. Near the house where recently carpenters worked, crude odorous beams lie, and it very much pleases a band of children, barefoot, with the panties which are rolled up knee-deep, with the long hair cut in a curve piece; and only the smallest of them — the three-year-old peanut — is dressed in a city way: in a jacket and картузик with tapes, in brand new shoes. In total on it brand new, elegant, festive. From a pocket the silver chain of hours is seen.
Children tore off crude bark from a beam, soft from the inside, separate it damp, gentle tapes, twist toy reins and knutik. All of them sit on a porch, busied. The Tatar, the biggest bosses. The others watch with what art it twists a crude string. Small costs below as cannot get on steps differently as on all fours.
— Vukol! — speaks Tatork small gently — what it at you on a chain?
— Hours — Vukol answers.
— Let’s have a look!
The Tatar himself took out the real silver watch from the child’s pocket, smelled them, licked and put to an ear.
— Tick! to it-bo! chevo-s there inside ticks! Ottsova, that?
— On a name-day presented! — Vukol speaks and wants to take hours back, but Tatorka sat down with them on the top step and was engaged in opening of a cover.
Children as flies, stuck around it.
Vukol very much wants to receive back hours, but he hesitates to insist and to get difficult on a porch, will not part forcibly children: all of them it is more of it.
— See you! — derisively Tatorka speaks — at hours! And what cap, with tapes yes from tsvyata!
Children laughed.
— Rich, devils! — continued the Tatar, picking hours a knife.
Vukol offended by laughter of companions flashed to ears, removed a cap, broke from it tapes and artificial roses, threw them on the earth, crushed.
Children laughed loudly again:
— Strizhenny bare, as Tatar!
Also were engaged in hours.
In big eyes of Vukol there were tears.
The Tatar broke off both covers of hours and began to take out small screws and castors, seeking that ticks there, “inside”.
— Give hours! — Vukol shouted.
Back Vukol received them in unassembled form: all interior of hours represented a handful of fragments.
— Nothing — encouraged him Tatork — to you their houses will soil!
Vukol silently thrust fragments into a pocket.
— Give the handle, do not become angry! — tenderly Tatorka told, going down from a porch.
Vukol reconciled and flattered smiled.
— On! — he trustfully stretched a tiny hand.
The Tatar unexpectedly pressed his palm below than the waist and made impropriety.
All laughed delighted.
Vukol began to cry. It seemed to it that his hand is profaned forever. Wanted to run home, but also it was a pity to leave companions: a game in a horse with just prepared harness was assumed.
— Fool! — he told Tatorke.
— I am a fool? I will give those! To Vdar in a nose — at once blood will scatter… and to the father we will tell that you fought on the street! To you do not order to fight, and to us nothing, it is possible! What you blink? And eyes on a flat dish, do not vidt crumbs! There is a pool, washed up, exclusively! Yes something I am nasty? — The Tatar threateningly moved to it, but it was suddenly softened: — Well, an aydata in a horse to play! Three that? Vukol! You will go to my three?
— I will go.
Children, having joined hands, were built in the three. Everyone took a vozhzha in teeth. Tatorka, the coachman, really whips the three. Vukol represents pristyazhny; all rush on dirt the middle of the wide street, the brand new suit of Vukol is splashed with dirt, but the sun shines joyfully, dirt — warm, sparkles under the sun, streamlets murmur, from a harness is so fresh and smells delicious; Vukol is happy that Tatorka accepted him in a game, jumps with odorous, soft, bitterish vozhzhy in teeth, bending the head on one side as do to a horse in a pristyazhka — and suddenly, having stumbled, unexpectedly falls in dirt. The three stops, and all companions watch how it rises from a pool: liquid dirt flows from a face and hands, all its elegant suit in dirt. To cause sympathy of companions, Vukol loudly cries, standing in dirt with the stained hands bulged in the parties. But children laugh again.
— Well, spaced out more widely than a mitten! — the Tatar speaks. — I those here will stop up it!
The Tatar grabbed after the journey a handful of horse manure and wants to push to it in a mouth.
Vukol with a roar takes to heels, there, where the home porch is seen at the corner. He runs very fast, but Tatorka is much more and stronger it, on the bridge through a ditch caught up, grabbed by a collar and — about horror! — stuffed to it the mouth is full, smeared with manure of a lip and cheek. The kid even ceased to cry, convulsively bent to a stream and began to wash the person muddy water. All he was soiled and wetted through, but there is a wish to play at horses to him after all, only not from Tatorkaya. Children stand in the distance and watch how Tatorka at a slow pace comes back to them.
Suddenly on a porch the father Vukola appears. According to his face it is noticeable that the father heard his crying, perhaps, saw everything and very annoys.
Long dense curls of the father flutter downwind. He quickly goes to the son, silently takes Vukol by hands and carries away to the house. There they are met by mother and throws up the hands at the sight of the sobbing son in the suit tormented and splodgy with dirt. It without planing as the father, never scolds and does not punish; Vukol knows that mother would regret and consoled, would change clothes of him for all dry and released to play, but the father angrily discharges her, itself undresses the son and puts on the big bed veiled by bed curtains.
— Sleep! — by an imperative voice he speaks, drawing bed curtains.
Vukol long lies sobbing. If he could expect terrible appearance of the father, then would not cry on the street. He with envy hears voices of companions behind a window. It seems to it that the father did not understand his tears that it was only necessary to caress, console and again to release to play. That it is not understood, Vukol fell asleep with offensive feeling in tears.
Someone licked it damp, warm language in the lips. He woke up. On a bed to it the King got. This is his dog: for its entertainment the father got; it is small, red, with long wool and a fluffy tail, with an ostrenky muzzle, with sharp ears. Vukol embraces her, presses to a breast, and the King shchekotno licks to him an ear.
Bed curtains зашпилен pin. Mother always so does when stacks Vukol on the bed in the afternoon. Sometimes and she lays down with it, feeds him with sunflower seeds which she cracks for it. Vukol hears — someone entered the room, hears a voice of the male neighbor:
— As you want, Elizar but only that now she jammed our chicken again!
— Bill I it how many time, thought — will lag behind! — the father’s voice answers…
— Is not present if visited — will not lag behind, fox breed! Make favor, exterminate you it, steals and steals — that your fox!
Stumps are heard, the man leaves. The father slammed the door of the neighboring room too. Vukol hears how he speaks about something with mother.
Vukol did not understand sense of a conversation with the man. What does the word “exterminate” mean? To finger? Of whom the man complained? Who eats hens? Suddenly his heart clenched alarm: yes it is the King! About the King before said that she steals and eats hens!
Vukol caught easy steps of mother. The curtain was removed: mother costs and smiles the silent smile.
The king jumped off from a bed, having flashed a fluffy tail. Vukol reaches for mother. She kisses it and quietly asks:
— And who to you broke hours it?
— Tatorka.
— And you would not give!
— He took… to have a look … — Vukol justifies himself — he is big! He to me befouled a hand and violently fed with manure!.
His eyes were filled with tears again.
— Mother… it is not necessary to me a new cap! Children laugh… Tatorka fights… There is nobody to play… Only with the King… yes from Pashkaya!
Mother sighs:
— Well that! Play with Pashka, with the girl it is better, and I will banish Tatorka from our yard!
She dresses it in an everyday old suit, puts on stockings, boots.
— A new suit all in dirt at you! Be not found you with this robber!. Well, get up!.
Vukol jumped off from a bed.
The father — in a jacket, in a cap, with the gun hanging on a belt behind shoulders entered.
— Mother! Tatorka told that we are the rich. Truth?
— No, pretty, poor! Men are richer than us! We will leave from here soon! Well and you yet small, will understand nothing!.
— Tatorka does not love the rich… beats me, thinks — we are the rich!
— Fool your Tatorka! — the father interfered. — Here it will get to me — I will dig to it ears!. The thief will leave him, and it worst of all!
— Tatorka broke hours! — mother reported.
— Are guilty: entrusted the child, dressed up as acceptable… I look — and he in a pool that a pig.
— Yes it, companions such!.
— That also is! — the father sighed.
— You where with the gun?
— Yes here I want to take away a dog to smithies! Sonny! Let’s go with me, your dog! I tied her at a porch! Also you will lead itself!
— The child should not look at it! — noticed mother.
— No, let sees what for theft happens!. That since then was afraid of theft!
— Yes what else understands дитё! — mother objected.
— Anything! Let will remember that and in thoughts this Tatorka was afraid to be the thief… and that…
At a porch the King on a leash quietly sat. The father untied it and that she did not escape from the child’s hands, the free end of a rope about Vukol’s belt tied.
— Itself also conduct it and remember that she is a thief, torment is what the thief has to gain!.
Vukol bewildered listened to the father, without understanding why they go to smithies, but to go there with the father was flatter. Vukol was already there, it is close behind their house, on backs, on the river bank.
The king jumped about Vukol, trying to lick him in a face. Having caught sight of this procession from where the children coordinated by a trace in some distance undertook.
On the occasion of a holiday in smithies did not work.
Against each of them there were columns for forging of horses. Under a steep slope the river, a bend approaching close backs of houses shone. From a belltower the cheerful ringing of bells rushed.
The father shortly tied the King to one of four columns and, having taken Vukol by hand, turned back. Having passed steps twenty, he stopped and removed the gun.
— Become behind! — severely he told the son — and be not frightened — now I will shoot!
Vukol stood behind, with fear watching as it lifted the gun, put a bed to a shoulder, and without understanding why and where the father wants to shoot. Burst a shot, from a trunk fire took off. With smoke began to smell something sharp. Vukol turned pale, lips began to tremble him.
— Well, that’s all! — the father told, lowering the gun.
Through odorous smoke it was visible how on the earth at a column the King fluttered.
Without remembering itself, Vukol ran to it. The king twitched all over. From her nostrils blood streamed. Vukol loudly began to squeal, fell to it, embraced for a neck.
— King! King! — he shouted… Spasms squeezed his throat. Tears dimmed light. In eyes darkened. When the father raised it on hands, a child’s face twitched…
Vukol regained consciousness. It seemed to it that he long slept that hours are whole that Tatorka did not pursue it that the King is living and now will jump to it on a bed, will lick lips and an ear.
Behind a window laughter, noise of children’s, male and female voices, some crash as if peas pour in an empty bucket is heard, and someone shouts drawlingly:
— And well, how the woman follows water? and how children steal peas?
And again began to knock in a bucket, and children so laugh that even scream.
— Mother! — Vukol wants to shout loudly, but it turns out poorly and plaintively. — On the street!
Mother opened bed curtains.
— What you, my darling? The head does not hurt you? It is impossible on the street, the father did not order! You had a heat!
— No, does not hurt! I will go to the street! What does it crack?
Women, men, children surrounded with a ring the man in a blue caftan, in a high black hat grechneviky, with the drum hanging at it on a belt. He fractionally beat the drum with two small sticks, from time to time pulling the thick chain tied by one end to a belt, and another — passed throughout a nostril to a big shaggy animal.
The animal somersaulted and grabbled on the ground, rose as the person, on hinder legs and then became the whole head above crowd. On other, thinner chain attached for a collar there was other same animal, but still small, it is no more than bandog. The young of wild animal sat at legs of the man and quietly looked at works of the mother, at the crowd with laughter monitoring representation.
— This is a she-bear with a bear cub! — mother told, lifting on the son’s hands.
She-bear showed any ridiculous pieces. Then it was entered into the house, and the room was filled with the people. She-bear stood on hinder legs and drank up vodka from a glass, holding it in forepaws.
The festive crowd filling the room laughed, made a din.
The bear cub was brought to the yard and there tied to the tumbled-down wattle fence under a canopy. Vukol very much became interested in a bear cub: the young of wild animal was absolutely manual, was afraid of nobody and behaved ridiculously. Vukol ran after him. There was a strong wish to get acquainted with it closer and to play as played with the King.
The bear cub sat on a wattle fence, pogromykhivy a chain. Vukol stood few steps away from him, having thrust hands into pockets of trousers. Small bear eyes sparkled good-natured friendliness. Both with curiosity watched some time at each other. Vukol decided to begin a game: bent down, lifted a small dry stick and threw into a bear cub. That sniffed at it, took in a paw, sucked and threw back. Vukol laughed and, having decided to continue a game, threw into him a stone. The bear cub looked for a stone, did not find and, having gone down from a wattle fence, went to the little person on all fours, but the chain prevented. Then he got up on hinder legs and quietly, plaintively zaurchat, as if complaining of a chain and as if inviting to approach him closer. Here Vukol remembered how the she-bear owner for fun struggled with her before the laughing loudly people. There was a wish to clasp also to it the new friend in arms. He gave hands to a young of wild animal. The bear cub sniffed at Vukol. From an animal smelled of wet wool. Approached it closely, but at this time someone seized him behind and lifted on air: it was Vukol’s mother. Without telling anything, she ran from the yard, strong pressing the son to a breast.
On the street put on legs, took by hand, told:
— It is impossible to play with a bear: he will eat you! Let’s go better to Romanevym!
Vukol was surprised: so ridiculous bear cub and cheerful!
Romanev lived nearby, in a big old log hut. Them was much: the grandma, the gray-haired grandfather, two bearded men, two guys — all such huge, they seemed Vukola nearly to a ceiling: women, maids, children — the log hut is always full. In a log hut the horse harness, in an outer entrance hall — a colored arch with a bell is hanging: about Romanev said that they are from time immemorial coachmen. There lives Pashka, the friend Vukola. She comes to play every day to it dolls or calls on the street. Lips and a chin at it always in sores from fever, it always nasty, but Vukol loves it with all the heart.
All family sat at a table and had dinner. Pashkina the grandmother gave on a table.
— Welcome! — all told chorus. — Ali the groom — from missed the bride? Pashka! you will go in marriage for Vukol?
— I will go! — Pashka answers, thrusting a finger into a mouth, and, having approached “groom”, whispers to it on an ear: — Let’s go to a barn.
All densely laughed.
Vukola with Pashka called the groom and the bride long ago and though they did not understand value of these words, nevertheless believed that they will always play together, even when big will grow.
Mother began to tell about Vukol’s fight against a little bear and asked not to allow to go home the boy, will not take away bears yet: the guide has dinner.
— And we it together with Pashka on the near field will take to build a buffoonery! — men answered. — Tomorrow on an arable land we want to leave!
Mother left soon.
All family left to the yard. Men began to oil tar of a wheel and axis of the cart, women put knots, koshma, sheepskin clothes in the cart.
Pashka quietly pulled Vukol a sleeve and began to mince to gate. Her head with a white braid is tied by a motley scarf, a sundress on it from homespun matter, a leg barefoot, with coarse heels, in “tsypka”. Vukol always went after Pashka, and Pashka bossed.
The barn was across the road, there stood omt last year’s straw, near it an old shed with a straw low roof. The somersaults in straw and a travel from an omet on a flat roof of a shed were favourite their game.
This time they, as before, happened, climbed on a shed and, having joined hands, with an extraordinary celebration jumped on an old, thin roof, and Pashka, choking with happy laughter, sang:
Rain, rain, stop,
We will go to Arestan…
— Sing! — she shouted, jumping and holding Vukol by both hands.
In the heat of their fun the roof under their legs cracked, was moved apart, and both of them failed down, in a shed, together with an armful of brushwood and rotten straw. It was so unexpected that children did not manage even to be frightened and only floundered in dusty straw.
Dust powdered eyes, sprinkled faces, jammed into a nose. Having put out the heads from straw, they looked at each other in a dark shed and laughed. Got out, shook off, and Pashka began to jump again and started singing.
— Gate are locked! — plaintively Vukol told. — Let’s not get out!
— Eva! and a gate on what?
Easily crept under shed gate, through a pool. From a barn ran to the Pashkiny log hut. Midway to them the low old man met a long white beard, in bast shoes and a high cap, in a blue pestryadinny shirt, a comb at a belt. Having passed them by itself, it took the end of a beard in a mouth, terribly began to roar, shook the head and zatopat bast shoes.
Children very much started running.
— This is the brownie! — Pashka explained, having turned pale and having begun to shake. She ran quicker than Vukol, but did not release his hand from the.
Vukol believed Pashke that it is not the person, but some terrible brownie: and before he heard about it from Pashki any horrors. The brownie steals some children, carries away them with himself in a bag and even eats.
In fear they looked back.
— Dorzhi! dorzh! — the brownie shouted them following — – solution! — shook a beard and stamped legs in bast shoes as though being going to catch up with them.
In horror, with crying they ran in in a log hut.
At Vukol were stared, lips twitched, the person turned pale as chalk.
— Brownie! brownie! — breaking into tears, Pashka shouted. — Runs for us… the beard long… growls here so: at-at!
— What brownie? — Pashkina the grandmother was surprised, looked in a window. — Yes it is Terenti, the shepherd! purposely it, not really! Took in head to scare you! See, as you shiver both! Well, fall to me, восподь with you! What old fool! Shepherd Terenti it, joker it at all not the brownie!
Pashka and Vukol rushed to it, buried the heads in her sundress, and she stroke-oared them on the heads wrinkled, rigid.
When children calmed down, put them in the cart on soft knots and sheepskin coats. There the grandmother, two maids and two guys sat down.
Dear Pashka cheered up and began to assure Vukol that in the field for them will build a tent which will be “to the sky”.
The field was nearby, immediately behind a village fence. From the cart pulled out huge panels and began to lift it on in advance hammered columns and stakes.
Vukol with interest waited for construction of a tent: really to the sky? Looked up: highly the cloud floated, the sun was rolled up for the end of the earth.
The linen tent was built such big and high that men went under a tent without being bent — but after all the tent did not reach the sky.
— It only this way, wait a moment! — surely Pashka told — and then isdelat another. That will already be to the sky!
Women made fire before a tent and began to cook porridge. All mudflows on a koshma in the middle of a tent and a fir-tree crude a honey agaric with bread.
Then ate hot potato, supped millet soup. While had supper, there came dark spring night with the rare large stars which acted in dense black height.
After a dinner all went to bed on a koshma a vpovalka. Vukola with Pashka put nearby, covered with an odorous tanned sheepskin coat.
— Groom with the bride! young people! — men joked.
— Sleep, good luck! — the grandmother told.
But they were whispered for a long time, arguing among themselves. In a tent opening stars from above looked.
— Nebushko is a God’s tent! — his girlfriend whispered Vukola, embracing him for a neck thin hands — and stars — gvozdochka gold, the sky is beaten by them that did not fall — a baushka of a bayal — really, I do not lie, burst eyes! And above god sits: it does a rain, a thunder and to a molonye and if Ilya prophet on a nebushka goes by a fiery tarantass — a baushka of a bayal — that time the thunder rattles and molonye happens! And in the sky there are andela: hands at them of a netuta, only heads and wings, as at birdies — a baushka of a bayal!
Vukol with full confidence listened Pashkina to stories and willingly believed that about a barn to them the brownie met, in the sky there lives god, and the asterisks shining highly seemed svetlenky heads of angels which as if moved in dark height with the bird’s wings.
Woke up from noise and a dialect. In the village often and cheerfully rang a big bell.
All were standing. Women hasty put on, men harnessed a horse in the cart. In the sky stars still glimmered, in a section of a tent dark night looked. It was cold. All left a tent, is disturbing speaking about something and not listening to each other. Having joined hands, children ran out after them.
Over the village all sky was poured by golden-scarlet light. From a distance noise of many human voices reached. The alarm stopped, again flew chaotic blows, merging in continuous copper howl. To brightly lit sky from the earth the dense cloud seeming white as steam floated. In the flaring sky something cracked.
— Ah-ah! — cried Pasha and suddenly began to cry, began to call the grandmother, without releasing Vukol’s hand.
— Baushka, небушко burns!
— Ah you, vospod! — the old woman threw up the hands — that with you to do! Oferova burn! Obliquely from us! To be dragged we go, and you could not be put! The maid with you will remain! The house at Oferov burns, troubles as!
— Why, the baushka, burns?
The guy, vzvazzhivy horse, with irritation grumbled:
— Rich they, devils!
II
Vukol sat on a floor of a timbered log hut at legs of the old woman dressed in a blue sundress with tin buttons. Near it there was his friend and the uncle — Lavrusha. The grandmother spun yarn, twisting the buzzing spindle; beside it the daughter — Nastya, the young girl spun it. On a heavy pine bench at a table the grandfather with a long gray-haired beard spun a bast shoe, and on the horseman the elder brother of Lavrusha — the adult guy Yafim — made a fishing tackle of a cane. The winter decline shone in icy glasses, giving them a reddish shade.
It was vaguely remembered how mother took out knots from the house, something was bound behind a tarantass, pillows laid sitting; mother sat down on them, having put Vukol’s number. On a trestle near the coachman Romanev the person in strange clothes, in a blue cap, with a saber at a belt and long moustaches jumped. About a porch not movably and speechless the big crowd stood. There was a father dressed roadside, sat down with mother, and the three rushed on the wide rural street to pasture, for a village fence.
Hushfully the hand bell with the tied-up language tinkled, pogromykhivat jingles; the wide, flat steppe was a circle, smelled of a grass, dust and horse then. Vukol long admired a saber of the moustached person and joyfully looked around roads from where as if the high turning yellow rye bowed. Then all this somehow disappeared from memory and consciousness: Vukol lulled by jingles and measured rocking of a tarantass fell asleep on hands at mother…
Now Vukol was six years old, he lived in the village of Zaymishche on a visit at the grandfather and the grandmother.
The log hut of the grandfather stood directly against a village fence and was similar to him: big, thick, turned from thick beams, with a gray straw roof and gloomy windows. Also the grandfather was same: big, broad-shouldered, thin, but heavy; when went on a log hut — floor boards bent under its bast shoes. It had a long beard, gray-haired, the head bald and a voice — as at a bear. With adult children said a little and loved that understood it from one word. With small it was tender.
The grandmother — small growth, dry, with a thin profile of a dark face. Spoke and laughed quietly, timidly, good-natured.
Lavrusha is the rural little boy with a chestnut-colored thick hair a cap, with a deep frown, the sedate and judicious, real little little man. Almost identical growth and age, the uncle and the nephew very much loved each other, spent the whole day together, and slept in an embrace on полатях at night.
In a forward corner of a log hut there was a bozhnitsa with a set of dark icons and an icon lamp from color glass, the painted picture representing “Hung on a wall as mice of a cat buried”, along timbered walls there were wide and heavy pine benches, a bozhnitsa — a table. A quarter of a log hut the big Russian furnace with white subfenny, with a closet behind it and extensive occupied polatyam which connected to the furnace a thick bar. Big climbed polat directly from the furnace, children could get only on a bar there. About a door — the fad in which basts, a harness and different economic belongings were stored.
In a pier between forward windows hung, наклонясь, the archin mirror of market work decorated paper with flowers zasizhenny flies. Most often Nastya stopped before curve reflection in this mirror.
Nastya was the stately fair-haired girl with the pretty person. She “nevestitsya”, put on in print dresses, carried rings and earrings.
The frost adorned glasses of windows in elaborate blue colors. Winter twilight was condensed. Nastya, having breathed on glass and having had a look in the thawed circle one eye, shouted to children:
— Rolling all right!
The only beggar in the village was knocked on a gate.
Headlong, as the scared kittens, rushed children from an oven on polat, clambering on a bar, hid there in a far corner, buried the heads under pillows and sheepskin coats.
Slowly entered Rolling, having strong slammed the become covered with hoarfrost door.
It was very high growth, is thin and thin, with the little, bird’s head, closely cropped, with a dark wrinkled face almost without vegetation, with a long pointed nose, with the big bag hanging through a shoulder almost to the earth. The thin, thin legs in frozen bast shoes which are wrapped up by rags shivered. On thin shoulders the old soldier’s overcoat was wound.
— To Milostink For goodness sake! — said the Muscleman in low tones and pulled down a ripped cap from the head, being christened on icons.
Nastya went to a closet, brought a big chunk of sitnik.
— Accept For goodness sake!
Rolling crossed, lowered a piece in a bottomless lean bag and told by the sick deaf voice:
— Christ will save!
— Get warm! — compassionately the grandmother told. — To you on an oven to lie, and you go begging!
— I have nobody, all died, and the soldier, it is visible, and death does not take, it peck rolling!
— And if you on service were? long ago, tea? — slightly stammering, Yafim asked.
— Long ago! — the old soldier became straight. — At an anperator Mikolaye the First served, to will, twenty five years, and to Nona here — I go begging. There’s nothing to be done? Destiny! it peck rolling!
— What it is musclemen?
— In old times we musclemen called carrion crows… a proverb at me such: it peck rolling!
— Yes you and that on old a crow are similar!
— Tease with rolling, and also forgot a baptized name itself!
— Years as to you?
— Mnoga! it was from the youth painfully healthy, served in grenadiers… one sticks to one thousand received, and розог and I will not remember as, скрозь the system was driven and in fluent was, all was… well, pymat, in iron shackles chained and — on a mare!.
— On what mare?
— And эфто, a sudarka if on the area of a sekla a whip, so put on a mare — on a scaffold a bench such, on racks put it, hand-legged belts will bind, and the executioner — take care, to an ozhg! — as a whip vdarit, at once blood will scatter!
Rolling with a celebration quickened when shouted by a deaf voice: “take care, to an ozhg!”
— Passions каке́! — having thrown up the hands, Nastya sighed.
— Now that for service? — willingly continued Rolling. — Overindulgence one!. At the noneshny sovereign — neither you a skroz-system, nor you mares, nor fie to you — birches — anything! Strike эфто service, them peck rolling! No, they would serve about ours! Took away me vyyunoshy, held down took away, and it was turned back home by the old man, I tanned, have the live place no skin on a back, hems ache also now at night!. This — service! The marching was — extend a leg, a sock to a sock, unanimously in a frunta you stand — it is live dead, in ammunition — purity, besides articles — “on краул”, for example, it was required to take ease — and the infantry goes — the earth shivered! Э and that баять, the killer whale, is not present such service now! The First used to say the late anperator of Mikolai: kill nine, learn the tenth! Also killed! And I here strong was. Immortal to a regiment called, death was afraid of me! It was turned back home clean, there is no An — neither house nor home, either the family, or cousins-in-laws: god tidied up all! And here I live yes I live, me peck rolling, one word — immortal!.
— And in the war there were you, the grandfather?
— As! всеё transferred the Sevastopol kanpaniya! Had Georgy for bravery! what was!. sheer hell!. as to the people lay down! well, god stored me it is unknown for ча: and sekl me, and скрозь drove a system, and on a mare was, and in the war — though those scratch! Yes a tapericha all is also forgotten!
Children, slightly breathing and having hardly put out the heads from under rags, with horror listened to the terrifying story.
Frightened by rolling in the village of children, said to them that the old soldier carries away them in the bag. Nobody, except it, went with a bag behind a handout; only the priest who several times a year came from Petty-bourgeois Farms on collecting.
Rolling left. Children got down with polaty the in the regular way through a bar on the furnace — and lowered the heads through “zadoroga”.
In a log hut darkened.
The grandmother in a closet long inflated a piece of coal on a perch of the Russian furnace and, at last, lit a splinter, put it in the svetets who was above a wash-tub. The log hut was lit with the incorrect, wandering light.
The grandfather still spun a bast shoe, tapping with a shank of a kochedyk and tastefully ponyukhivy from time to time dark tobacco powder from a birch bark snuffbox, dexterously filling it on a nail of a thumb and involving one nostril a pinch. Continuing work, he quietly sang the lingering song under hum of spindles:
We will pass, brothers, lengthways down the street,
We will sing the song old,
Song old, Volga mother!
As soon as the grandfather started singing — children came to be on a floor at his legs, they began to spin something from scraps of basts too.
In the song it was told about the old man and the old woman interpreting whom from sons to hand over in soldiers:
Whether how to hand over to hand over the eldest son?
Yes the senior has small children!
Whether how to hand over to hand over the son of an average —
Yes at an average the wife is tender…
At last, decided to hand over younger:
Does it have neither wife, nor children,
And he is nepochetchik-son!
In a step to singing spindles buzzed. Through howl of a blizzard somewhere away the hand bell which was fading, again beginning to ring was heard for a long time as if asked to spend the night and did not let anywhere.
The song ceased to be listened, but the grandfather still sang:
Would not let to spend the night you,
Yes well — sit down to have supper:
According to your speeches — from soldiers you go,
And our sonny in nekruta zabrit,
In shackles went to service imperial,
Twenty years passed also five years
Also it is not known — whether it is live whether it is live?
Here he kept silent, knocked kochedyky and to the accompaniment of spindles and a distaff finished:
You, my darling sir-father,
You, my darling mother,
Whether you recognize свово the son smaller?
Women continued to spin, and children with astonishment looked at the grandfather. It was represented to them — as the younger son was turned back to parents, thin and old as Rolling, tears stream down at it the terrible face with a long nose and the ugly, closely cropped head.
On all fours removed to legs of the grandmother and, twisting tin buttons of her blue pestryadinny sundress, unanimously stuck:
— Baushka! Tell the fairy tale!
The grandmother began to tell silent, darling, s by an old-womanish voice, without ceasing to spin and from time to time, on the action course, to sing, representing a goat:
Kozlyatushki, detyatushka!
Open, unlocked,
Your mother came,
Milk brought!
The milk on a vymechka runs,
From a vymechka on kopytechka,
From копытечек — in cheese the earth!
Plaintively and fantastically the song sounded. The grandmother, representing a wolf, spoke and sang by a thick voice; representing a kozlyatok, again changed a timbre.
When the wolf went to shape thinner language to the smith, the grandmother did a special face and spoke on — wolf low and densely:
— The smith, the smith, painfully I is simple, language at me is thick, hold down to me thin language!
The wolf achieved the, deceived and ate a kozlyatok; children with horror, as if in reality, saw an execution which the offended mother revenged it:
— The godmother, the godmother, a hair burns!
— So it is also necessary to you: why mine the kozlyatok ate?
— The godmother, the godmother, a leg burn!
— So it is also necessary to you!.
A story about Ivanushka and Alyonushka was top of art of the storyteller: listening to this fairy tale, children already not for the first time shed tears of the best human feelings.
The grandmother told about the wonderful mare who gave rise zolotogrivy horses and the fad-gorbunka about clever brothers and Ivan the Fool; clever married and deceived the father, and Ivan honestly guarded the fatherly field. For it clever brothers considered him the fool, but left so that to it tumbled down happiness when clever got zolotogrivy horses, and to the fool an ordinary-looking gorbunok. Gorbunok had magic power and bore to the owner faithful service. At the end of the fairy tale when Ivanushka, apparently, inevitably had to die in the boiling copper, the gorbunok came of it to the rescue also here and even rewarded it for his sorrows: having boiled down in a copper, Ivan was the handsome, the clear head and the owner of the biggest kingdom in the world.
Was marvelous fairy tales at the grandmother much: about a firebird, about Zmey Gorynych, about the tsar Saltan, about the sleeping tsarevna, the Golden Cockerel, about a bottom a tolokonny forehead and the worker to his Head.
Absolutely close the hand bell tinkled and calmed down. At gate the Ball began a bark, runners of sledge began to creak, someone knocked on a gate.
Yafim threw шубняк shoulders and left through an outer entrance hall to the yard.
— To whom a tepericha to be? — the grandfather grumbled, getting up from a bench.
In an outer entrance hall creaking, frosty steps were heard, and together with clouds of white frosty air the tall person in the fur coat brought by snow with the big lifted wolf collar tied by a scarf with the become covered with hoarfrost ice-covered beard entered a log hut. Behind it Yafim entered, bearing the big knot brought by snow.
The guest grunted, unbent a collar and began to tear off from moustaches the cold hand ice icicles. Yafim helped it to take off a fur coat, and to the middle of a log hut there was a red curly person in a jacket and fur boots overknee.
The grandfather turned pale.
— Really you, Elizarushka? — the grandmother threw up the hands. — Vospodi!
— I am most! — the guest answered. — Great you live. Did not wait?
— Come, kindly to favor! To wait for Kuda here? Three years passed!
Vukol pricked up the ears.
Elizar solemnly, three times kissed each other with all. Lifted on Vukol’s hands, pricked to him cheeks with a beard, told:
— Masha with Vovka in the city!
The grandmother has a little cry in a voice:
— Darling you are our Elizarushka, a falcon clear, an eagle gray-winged!
The old man grunted, pushed the son-in-law to a table and itself sat down.
In a log hut began to fuss, laid a table. Nastya brought a tin samovar from an outer entrance hall and was engaged in it.
The guest put near himself children. Developed a small parcel: there were painted pictures, several brand new basten books and one big.
— With mail reached — he told — yes nearly went astray, strayed a little bit, here and were late!
— Where you there, in Siberia, lived? — gloomy the grandfather asked.
— In the city of Kolymi… Only a rank that the city, and actually — a hole! Solitude, game, deficiency!. But, by the way, grew roots, we see — and in Siberia good people are.
The grandmother sobbed.
— Everything эфто left because of us, because of our village — the grandfather noticed — because of the earth! The landowner on “conclusion” brought us here and deprived of the earth! you suffered for the earth!
Vukol attentively listened attentively to the father’s conversation with the grandfather, understood badly, but intuition caught that all this has some communication with a half-forgotten trip. Suddenly pulled it to the father, взлез to it on knees.
— Aha! — the father laughed — you will go with me to the city to mother? and?
Vukol stretched to his ear and in a whisper reported in confidence:
— I will go!
Seniors long spoke about life in exile, about for what his parents got there, but a lot of things seemed unclear. Vukol decided to choose a moment when the grandfather is not for inquiries. He listened and kept the eyes glued from the father: for long time this image grew dull in his memory. Now Vukol with curiosity and pride admired still the young, talkative and attractive man. Its exterior which is almost forgotten by Vukol seemed very beautiful. The hair which grew in exile almost to shoulders were cast away back, opening a big clean forehead; the thin nose — with a small hump, eyes — cheerful, derisive, a beard of pure gold, curls locks. Absolutely to the man it is not similar. In all bearing — daring. It was joyful to watch Vukola at him.
— Books what for? — the grandfather grinned. — We are illiterate, not about us pisano!
— In Siberia kind people educated! — Elizar objected. — And these took for children! From there is nothing to do and you will listen!
The grandfather took the big book, carefully developed it on a table and slowly began to overturn sheets hardened fingers. Long with surprise and bewilderment looked at the opened page speckled by ranks of black signs, mysterious for it, on white paper.
— What you look? — quietly the grandmother grinned. — Chitaka!
— Knowledge! — the grandfather told. — About what pisano?.
— Yes you and head over heels hold the book! — the son-in-law noticed.
— To it all one! — Yafim grinned.
— This is Paulson, the book for general reading! There is a story about Englishman Franklin who opened why there is a thunder and a lightning, and many other things about science! Is about Fulton who launched the first steamship!
— See you! — the grandfather told. — Bat, Ilya prophet rattles, on the sky goes!
— Fairy tales! The science everything learned that it to what happens in the nature…
The grandfather shook the head.
— And god? You Nanyukhatsya, it is visible, in only three years! And here to me everything is uniform: I and in церкву Nicoli do not go — far, by the Lower Farms, she! Old women of an efta of a prayer invented!. God willing a dozhdichka, here and thanks to it, to Christians from it more is necessary nothing!.
Elizar shook curls, looked at the father-in-law crafty:
— God? what god? Who saw it?
There came awkward silence. The grandfather frowned.
— Yes you what, Elizar, you joke, perhaps?
The guest laughed.
— Of course, I joke! I like to test people as they think!
— Ooh, you napuzhat us, Elizar Grigorich! — with a silent snicker the grandmother told. — That it, vospod!
— God as reason of the Universe, maybe, also is — Elizar pompously — only not such as it on icons we, icon painters, write told!
He looked at old icons of a bozhnitsa where in the center there was an ugly woman with the baby on hands, above rushed on two white fiery horses harnessed in the flaring chariot, the prophet Ilya with the fluttering white beard.
— Here though to take this icon: from the writing it is known that Maria was the surprising beauty, and icon painters write her so that surely ugly was!. I in books read that in our veins blood consists of the slightest balls which with the naked eye even cannot be distinguished! — Elizar led round all a severe look. — And what, if these stars, both planets, and the sun which is the same star, as well as other stars, an essence only balls which float in veins of very big such giant at whom all our Universe is, maybe, only in one blood ball? What if god such? If our globe — only a blood ball in his veins? Where the end to these stars which we see at the night in the sky? Present edge of the Universe — and behind edge that? Will tell, emptiness? And behind emptiness that? There is no end of the Universe because the incalculable number of the star worlds arise again instead of those to which there came the end. It is infinity and eternity! The nature is and there is god! The Universe has neither end, nor the beginning!
The beard of the grandfather began to move, hiding a smile.
— Кака́ piece? and? — unexpectedly he told, addressing all and nodding on Elizar. — Sly fellow! it will get that mind for reason comes!
Nastya put a samovar on a table, placed tea cups. The grandmother brought snack.
Children were given on a cup of tea, and they drank it, sniffing and bending to a saucer not to spill. In the house of the grandfather tea was had seldom: only in solemn occasions when there were guests or on big holidays. Both boys with pleasure felt the aroma proceeding from tea together with steam and in it there was the main pleasure. The laurels frowningly attentively considered the new person.
— What case with me was! — there began Elizar, removing the emptied cup. — We stopped to spend the night at one man. And they had an old woman the patient, lies on the furnace. I ask what is with it? “Yes, speak, not by the night be told, frenzied as will roll on it — though from a log hut run, the passion to look! fights, beats, foam from a mouth! Here and now not in: it is necessary to remove it from the furnace, on a bed to put! Make favor if you are able, read before image ‘yes god will revive’! Pomogat, знамо, it to us!” I speak: why to read? I it and so to a sym! the old woman is sick, ledashchy. Got to it on the furnace, took her by hands, so you will not believe, such force at the old woman appeared — I can do nothing. And a sileshka at me in hands, you know, is. Beats off! I grasped it by hands, so she canines to me seized a hand, till it bleeds bit! What to do? Gave up. Tell house: this is a demon in it, only a prayer and it is possible to expel him. Well, there were I before icons, began to read. And it to me from the furnace: bya-bya-bya! Angrily it is so teased, eyes as coals! I got off, but continued to read what only under language turned up, even “Down the mother across Volga” read. And it though imitates, but more and more quietly yes is more silent. At last, it was tumbled down and fell asleep. Here its house removed. As dead: the head hung, hands as a lash, hears nothing and does not feel. Laid it. Speak: “Thank God, Christ will save those, helped out!. Now about one half a day will oversleep, and will rise healthy and will remember nothing, you expelled a demon from it!” In my opinion, klikusha it! A sincere disease such, and they trust in a demon!.
— And how not to trust? — all family was surprised with chorus.
— Here to one molodukha of snakes flew! — with conviction Nastya declared. — All saw! As at night all will fall asleep in a log hut, and rassyptsya over поветью, and then now to it on the furnace the husband her dead is: about the husband she grieved. It is known who grieves, to those and is. Yes does not order to tell anybody: threatens! She long hid and strike from the people you will hide? People see: кажню night over their log hut sparks is scattered a dragon. Stuck to it, confessed. Night came, it shivers everything, is afraid of it. Is — gro-oznay! — “You пошто told?”, and well to pinch! in bruises made all body by it. Threatens: prick you will tell people — with a braid I will come! About half a year flew, before tender was, and here terrible became. Istayala it, as a wax candle, in what soul… Also it came — with a braid! Yes in the afternoon! all houses were. Nobody zrit it, and she one sees! Threw the arms round the father a neck: “The father, close! wants to hit me with a braid!” The father embraced her, to close. Here all on a log hut rush about, wave what got that to strike a dragon, and nothing leaves: it invisible and winged, under a ceiling curls, she shouts to the father: “The father, on you he threatened! Wants to stick into a shoulder with a braid!” Here at the old man now the hand hung. The daughter — dead fell! So it took out soul from it and carried away. And the father on a hand, on a thumb, had a tiny black wound and everything hurts, all not to heal. They to healers, they to fortune-tellers — to help nothing, никаке́ slanders! Integral year was ill. Yes, thanks, some passerby prisovetovat — it is visible from such that knew! — fresh blood from black chicken to primachivat with a special prayer and it is better to stick. Well also began to hem a finger gradually. The father of a dream lost at night: all will lay down on the furnace, and to it Dunya, the dead woman, seems, especially in the winter when a blizzard outside…
For a minute all became silent.
Splinter, crackling, flashed, grew dull, dropping the hissing pieces of coal in water.
The samovar a thin voice sang the plaintive song. The gray cat jumped off from the furnace and began to play on a floor a grandmother’s ball. Behind a window wind rustled, from time to time throwing snow dust into frozen windows.
— Shto — the grandfather meditatively muttered, stroking a beard — эфто all know. Not in one our village, and esteem everywhere, on all peasantry, to happen. Itself did not see, more and more women stir… a mozh, “it” dvistitelno… that… to fly at night?
— These cases everywhere how many you want! — there began Elizar. — Flies at night a fiery dragon it is necessary all our dark country! Therefore — night over it without dawn. From darkness it is rural… In the cities light has more about any not to hear dragons. From vain belief it, in vain such belief! Is called superstition!. People trust in a demon more strong, than in god, are afraid of it more, than god! And in what you trust, comes true!. I in one book read history — by verses it is written, the title — “Demon”. There too this national belief is taken, only the demon this not terrible, but unfortunate, young and himself is great — of course, the imagination human! The author took it from the people as the fairy tale, and the people and the fairy tale trust, here is how children! Great cause — belief! — Elizar kept silent. — And there was a history, I heard it in Siberia: the emperor Alexander the First, the fact that was at war with French in the twelfth year, actually did not die, and disappeared and became the hermit, was removed in the Siberian woods and lived to death under the guise of the simple man there. Konstantin about whom misters knew that as soon as it sets in, will give vent to serfs was a successor of an imperial throne. Well, it did not seem to zheltopuzika: they decided to kill him. Here Konstantin in the imperial carriage from Taganrog where Alexander as if died goes, thinks: as soon as I am a tsar, first of all I will give vent. Suddenly hears — behind far somewhere jump tops. Closer yes is closer. The driver to him turned back and speaks: “Your highness, successor Crown Prince! pursuit! not to good!” … “Well that” — Konstantin, and he answers, speak, idle time was, waited from it for good the black people — “to what to be, to that not to pass!” Those all are closer, just about will overtake, began to see — the person ten. Again the driver speaks: “Sit down, the sovereign, on a trestle, put on my odyozha, and I will put on yours, I will sit down on your place!” Only they managed to be changed odyozhy and the place as those naskakat and — bang! bang — from guns on both sides in carriage windows: riddled the driver in an imperial odyozha, turned horses — and let’s go back. So the male driver saved the successor of a throne from death, itself for it gave life! Believed that Konstantin of serfs will release. And he as arrived to St. Petersburg, also refused a throne, knew who shot at the driver, in a face saw them: the most foremost and the richest were landowners, court графья, princes and generals. Was afraid that will kill him if he will regret peasants. Here Aleksandra was also inherited not by Konstantin as it would be necessary, and Nikolay Pavlovich nicknamed in the people Palkin. Only nowadays reigning Alexander though without the earth, but after all exempted the people from mockeries of the landowner, noblemen and посейчас are angry with it, and there was on it an attempt of Karakozov who shot at the tsar and it is unsuccessful, and, sidyuch in prison, got poisoned with the poison hidden in hair. It had long hair, dense and curly, and it was sent by landowners. So I heard, I tell the story as I heard it.
— Well, well — the grandfather with emotion interrupted it — the will was given, and the earth all one remained with landowners? When from them the earth is taken away?
— When — it is unknown, but there will be it inevitably! — Elizar shook curls. — There are secret society and confidential subland office, and those people want to lift all people on landowners. The people think that these secret people want to protect from the tsar’s landowners, think that noblemen and this tsar want to destroy in revenge for country will, but do not know that the tsar too at the same time with landowners! Here you also get to the core of this cunning mechanics!
All were silent. Did not wait to hear it from Elizar.
It became boring for children from a serious conversation, eyes at them began to stick together.
— Well — Elizar told them — it is time to sleep to you and a postoyta, at bedtime I will read you songs from the good songbook: “Bérenger’s songs” is called. How many I songbooks bought, and it is better than it did not come across.
He developed the small book in a pink cover printed with ranks of short lines and, having thrown several leaves, began to read:
I am not deprived of theomancy,
I expect the end to princes of the earth:
The deserved penalty will comprehend them —
All poor things kings will die!
Elizar read well as though he did not read, and told, looking in the book. After several cheerful songs came across the song under the title “The falling stars”. In it the grandfather talked to the grandson:
…Here, the grandfather, one more fell.
Flies, flies, and it is not here!.
— There was a great commander — with a sigh Elizar told, closing the book — conquered all countries, except ours!. When went before army on a horse, in the sky over it the star shone day and night. And here he decided to conquer Russia. Took Moscow, and inhabitants lit it. It was necessary in the winter, in severe frosts when crows on the fly fell the dead, to run back with all the army. Took him prisoner, took out to the sea, landed on the desert island and there naked chained to the rock, the black raven began to peck to it heart. Then its star was gone and did not ascend any more.
— I vtepor a boy was when still you and did not exist — the grandfather unexpectedly declared. — Slightly I remember when the Frenchman came… The people about Moscow cried… I remember, dreamily… Brought to spend the night prisoners: brought — were slightly live, and thawed — good fellows from themselves! One and remained with our mistress — the painter appeared good, in Dubrov then the house new was built, so he painted with pictures of a wall — and now is whole!
All got out because of a table and began to lay beds. Children got in the habitual way on a bar on polat, also Elizar went there, the grandfather laid down on the edge. Vukol as if was stuck to the father. The laurels timidly and wildly continued to consider it frowningly.
Babushka and Nastya spread a koshma on a floor. The splinter lit a log hut with the flickering light for a long time.
— Well, how you lived here? — Elizar asked the son — missed?
— No, we with Laurels always together… in the field take us in the summer, and that in the wood we run, companions are… Nobody ever scolds me, nevertheless…
— What?
— Heart hurt always… Why you threw me?
Elizar sighed.
— Thought — it will be better for you at the grandmother! In Siberia, the brother, life thin!. here so will violently send there — at the other end of the world, behind the woods, behind mountains, behind swamps — and live as you want!
— Why violently? For what? The grandfather told — for the earth? for what?
— And you know Dubrova? happened there?
— Happened! for a Trinity, with little girls! to look for cuckoo slezk!
— There now! Well there? You love the Oak grove?
— I love!
— And her merchant took away from our village and one lives in it! Here men gathered for a descent and sent me to the city, to strive for Dubrova because competent I! and when it was turned back in the spring — you remember, to a mozha when the bear-hunter with a she-bear came and the fire was?
— I remember! The sky burned!.
— We then lived in Shackles! Soon after that sent me to the city, and then — to Siberia… Mother went voluntarily…
— It when we went with a hand bell?
— You remember unless? Coachmen Romanev really nearby and now live! On the road we came around here and you sleepy the grandfather and the grandmother were given! And your heart, perhaps, you speak about us, was ill?
— Yes! — quietly Vukol whispered.
— And hear — the grandfather interfered — hearing goes whether lie, whether is not present — I do not know as if and on Zaymishche our forest are angry too! Someone like the successor’s pomeshchikov! Whether tell, please, soon from swindlers the earth will be taken away?
Elizar laughed.
— I speak to you, we will inevitably select when at once we move to select everything!
The old man sighed.
The grandmother put out svetets, and everything calmed down in a dark log hut.
At last, all fell asleep, except the grandfather. Having convinced that all sleep, he began to think, and the grandfather always in a whisper thought at night, silently was not able to think. Its favourite word “swindler” vysheptyvatsya most often at it.
— Whether soon from swindlers the earth will be taken away?
And itself answered himself with a low whisper:
— Not soon!.
On walls cockroaches rustled; in the afternoon they were not visible, and there was the whole army at night. It seemed, they whispered to the grandfather ominous.
He loved the earth and country work, was severe and avaricious in expenses, maltreated a family and for it was respected by all in the village. Saved money in a jug, but to hint perish the thought about it to the grandfather: will become angry.
It seemed to it that the earth from year to year will give rise worse, rains drops out less and the sun does not heat in the summer as strongly any more as before when it was young and even went to the river at night to bathe. The earth at men becomes just barely enough as if it crumbles at them under the feet. Fists increased rent for the state site many times over…
The grandfather about the younger son, about the grandson whispered:
— That хрестьянин, and this not хрестьянин will be!.
Thought of the son-in-law: it was painfully changed from Siberia by this…
In life approached from where unclear. There were in log huts samovars and at whom and a lamp instead of a splinter. Maids — frantikh. Began to wear print dresses, there and Nastka puffs up, and here became honesty less in the people!
— Razorenye will be! Yafimk should marry! To marry the swindler!
The grandfather calmed down, ceased to whisper. One cockroaches whispered. Mysterious whispers rustled in darkness.
Over the sleeping dark village the first roosters sang. Flew over it terrible fairy tales, sad songs and gloomy beliefs. Till the dawn it was still far.
III
To Yafim usvatat the bride on Petty-bourgeois Farms: there the people lived purely, on city manners, and the bride was from a prosperous family; calculation inclined the grandfather to stop on this choice, though he did not love farm for a frantovstvo and city manners.
At first there went the grandfather with the old woman to shows there. Also the bride’s parents visited on a visit at Matvei: the serious business petty bourgeois in a long-skirted frock coat, with curly, in streaks of gray hair, with a comely beard, similar to the dealer or a prasol, and stocky, wrinkled, vostry on language, the fierce old woman.
Right there over a cup of tea and an entertainment there was a handshake. Only after that carried on the Farm of Yafima.
Took out full dresses from the storeroom: blue cloth long-skirted caftans, red belts, merlushkovy caps and leather boots with copper horseshoes. The grandmother put on a new blue sundress from brilliant matter with a braid and the same buttons in two ranks: from a breast to a hem. Took out rasshivny a headdress in the form of a half moon, threw from above with a big Turkish shawl. Ded and Yafim in the cloth caftans girded by red belts in the sheepskin coats covered by cloth wide open, with wide collars on shoulders, in suits of that breed which remained in the peasantry since ancient centuries as if turned into boyars. These expensive suits sewed at grandfathers and great-grandfathers, remaining from generation to generation were put on only in the most solemn occasions, only, maybe, several times in life.
New big sledge of own work with a high carved back, there are a lot of years standing in a barn, brought on the yard; harnessed the three in a new festive harness with copper set, with metal plates, jingles and long brushes, with the abrupt, high arch painted in motley flowers, on the ends fettered by copper. This harness was taken out from the storeroom only for ceremonial cases too.
In a root there was Chalka, a shirokogrudy roan gelding with a white long mane; on a pristyazhka — Karyukh, tonkonogy, with a little head, well going under a saddle, and dark-bay Mishka. Tails at them at all stuck thick, short plaits, and interwove scarlet tapes into manes.
The grandfather released a gray beard over an open sheepskin coat and villages near the grandmother on a back seat. Yafim — in a coach box. The laurels dissolved gate wide open, Yafim pulled reins, and the three ran out on the rural street, abruptly заворотив on the rolled snow road and having left behind a deep sled trace in a snowdrift. In windows of the next log huts curious woman’s persons flashed. Yafim whistled, distorted reins, and the three, rattling jingles, rushed the middle of the wide street.
Horses were torn from a harness, bells choked under frosty wind, frosty dust was kicked up by a column. The grandmother was closed by a high collar, only warmly looking eyes were seen. Yafim, as always, was silent and serious, from time to time stirred up reins, and the grandfather important grinned, rolling in a semi-archin beard.
They were turned back late at night. Chalka was in soap, the grandfather — tipsy. While Yafim unharnessed horses and brought a precious harness in a cold spacious outer entrance hall, the grandfather and the grandmother changed clothes in the usual poor attire. On the grandmother there was an old pestryadinny sundress again, the grandfather put shoes on in onuchas and bast shoes, threw zaplatanny шубняк, put on a ripped shaggy cap and left to the yard with a lamp to give to horses a stern for the night. In a log hut the splinter cracked, Nastya spun, the fair-haired head with curiosity looked at Lavrushin with polaty.
Yafim entered, changed clothes, like the father, old and silently sat down in all to a table.
The grandmother collected to have supper.
— Tea, on a visit treated? — crafty Nastya asked.
— Znamo business! the table in total both a lapshennik, and a moloshn fried eggs, fritters in honey, chicken meat was full… Well live!. and we are not hungry каке́ not painfully not beggars are eager for food… tea! Everything was under the charter! Brought the bride under a veil. We Bai: not the veil was come to be watched, and the bride! Here took off a veil, the bride bowed to all under the charter, the prince-good fellow in an osobitsa.
Yafim grinned.
— Here, as it is necessary, the prince was asked: Whether Liouba princess young? The prince, of course, here bows silently, and matchmakers and matchmakers told: люба́!. And ask the princess: whether люб to it prince young? The bride worshipped here, well, so люб! Well, here all on a ceremony… Prichityvala the bride long, Indus drove in a tear of all, I liked it: люта́ I will be, in mother, and from myself — тве́ rdinka, though nevelichka growth, and postavnenka! From a face it is white and from eyes it is cheerful!
Yafim again silently grinned, and Nastya told:
— Prick люта́ I — not life to me will be with it!
— Well, maiden thoughts are changeable! You, tea, prosvatay on that the meat eater!
— I bothered you, perhaps? — Nastya shot up.
— Did not bother and to what to be, to that not to pass, you we will pardon not all! The maid it is less — the woman more! Women repent, and maids are going to get married!. So — s, happened, people of a bayala are old!
The grandfather entered, cheerfully dumped шубняк, rose to become gray log huts under a matitsa and, притопнув bast shoes, unexpectedly started singing:
You, a hmelyushka, are cheerful the head,
The head, wide beard is cheerful!.
As you are absent, hop, more strong,
As you are absent, hop, becoming bright!.
The grandmother burst out laughing with a do-good, konfuzlivy snicker:
— And that you, the old man, rasplyasatsya! hop rustles, so the head is silent!
— Be silent you, the old woman! what is in the furnace, on a table throw everything! — and, притопнув, continued:
Hmelyushka walks across the field,
Still hop vykhvalyat itself!
— Me the sovereign, hop, knows,
Both princes, and boyars esteem,
And monks bless me!
— See you sorted houses! It is visible, there is no place like home?
…Still weddings without hop do not play,
Also fight and reconciled — all in hop!
Only there is on me a male gardener:
Deeply me, a hmelina, buries,
Drives in a tychinushka into zealously heart!
The grandfather straightened a beard and, sitting down to a table, laughed:
— On guests to walk and to itself not to lock a collar!. Let’s take a walk, it is visible, at a wedding, the old woman!.
— Well, well, all right! cheered up!.
— And, well, to cry about what?. it put, Yafima is married! Yafimka, and?
— And you have supper yes lay down — to, the father! — smiling, the son answered.
— To an expense will be as! You do not stint, the old man!.
Ded Pocriakhtel.
— Fifty will leave!. Well and at the good fellow not without sweetheart! The guy in a caftan, and the maid in a sundress!
Lavrusha looked, having lowered the head with polaty, and giggled joyfully: never before he saw the father such cheerful.
— You that, swindler! you laugh? Get down, sit down to a table! Soon and you we will marry!. Single, perhaps, you still?
— Single! — the Laurels giggled, getting down on a bar.
After a dinner the old man was filled up to sleep on полатях, singing more and more quietly, slowing down words:
That are rich men bought
And in a suslitsa the hmelyushka was heated,
On oak barrels spilled!
As here I, hop, cleared up,
On notches I, hop, dispersed:
To Otsmey I to the gardener a nadsmeshka —
I will hit it in тын with the head,
And in the dirt a beard!
After several “hen nights” in the house of the bride the wedding train took place, at last: the church was on Petty-bourgeois Farms.
To Matvei’s yard the whole train drove it is done a bit of traveling, there arrived the cart with a dowry of the young wife.
Near the athlete Yafim it seemed small. Her face was still covered by a veil. A crowd entered a log hut. There it was already covered long, in all log hut, hundred, made of three tables, with the benches which are moved up to it.
Young people were put in a forward corner, to a bozhnitsa. The others stood, they did not need to sit down yet.
Yafim was in a scarlet worsted shirt and a blue cloth caftan, young — in a white dress of city breed. At solemn silence of the numerous guests who filled a log hut, the grandmother approached the daughter-in-law, quietly took off her veil from the head, and all saw the person young: round, white, with bystry clever eyes, with a dense fair-haired braid. The mother-in-law untwined a braid on two, twirled around the head, and on the plot head silk “volosnik” of pink color. Only after that guests began to take seats at a table.
The wedding, “knyazhetsky” feast began.
The new person — the young bourgeois who was not wearing sundresses similar on city entered the conservative country house of the grandfather Matvei. The laurels in a new shirt grandly sat near the brother.
The log hut rustled from a cheerful dialect.
* * *
The spring sun began to warm the fields which did not dry out from the thawed snow yet, and the rural street turned green from the first gentle muravka.
The grandfather Matvei’s family amicably prepared for an arable land: adjusted an ancient heavy plow, repaired harrows, ordered the lacking or broken parts to the smith Migun.
Migun was the fussy big-nosed man with often blinking eyes and hasty, fluent speech. He not only did soshnik, ploughshares and axes, but was able to exorcise blood, treated and tore teeth, gave to drink to patients with a nagovorny grass and was considered as the sorcerer. Lived independently from the village, and its smithy stood on pasture, behind a village fence.
All spring in it work was humming, the horn breathed, sparks poured.
When agricultural tools were given to serviceability, the grandfather Matvei with sons left on an arable land. Next-to-skin, few earth behind a village fence was, and it was plowed so out that never gave a good harvest: to fertilize it to nobody and came to mind because of annual repartitions. Coped with it quickly, and still there was time for the distant field: it was the enormous site in the steppe, versts for thirty from the village — the state earth.
In the olden days it was removed for forty years by men — three families of Listratov — and grew rich from it. Removed on ruble six hryvnias for tithe, and now handed over to men of the village on thirty rubles, but also it was favorable to men. About Listratov said that for them the site — a gold mine.
Except an arable land, men removed at them in the same place and a mowing. Coped with an arable land, and on cleaning each man employed in the city of reapers and mowers. Worked together with hirelings.
Agriculture across Middle Volga was so conducted once.
Ded Matvei from avarice seldom employed alien workers, worked with a family even at night. With a bast basket through a shoulder, without cap, whispering something, scattered seeds a semicircle. Yafim plowed the plow harnessed by four horses, and little Lavrusha was already able to go behind a harrow. Over an arable land rooks curled, damp rich soil hard stuck to bast shoes — hard, tiresome work: the antediluvian plow should be held on hands and on the run to clean off from ploughshares an iron rake the stuck crude earth, legs podvikhivatsya between layers of the vzryty earth, and the breast and a throat overstrained from incessant shout on horses.
From the near field by the evening came back home, but when went to the distant site, lived in the field, in tents, all week and only on Saturday on Sunday came home — to dirt, in dust, black as Blacks; therefore every Saturday “blackly” the baths standing on backs of the village surely burned. On Sunday all village delightfully and long fell down.
The village was above high break under which, maybe, in old centuries Volga proceeded, but then departed on several versts so under break the lugovina was formed, and behind it in a poluversta the rechonka Postepok, small as a stream, densely grown about coast with a sedge and floating water flowers ran.
Through Postepok moved on small, eternally dirty bridge or the corduroy road arranged from the outlined boughs and manure — and immediately the dense oak wood rustling with the solemn and mysterious noise began.
In the spring Volga flooded all wood, approaching closely the village, and then it was possible to float by the boat in the wood standing half in water.
On holidays the flooded wood was filled with boats with maids and guys in bright red dresses, songs, sounds of an accordion and laughter.
When water marketed, in the wood there were lakes, and one of them — the biggest, oval as the mirror — the surrounded wood which shipped in it the green branches was the favourite place of bathing at children, the whole days vanishing in the wood. The lake it was called Print.
After a high water in the wood and on forest glades violent vegetation quickly appeared: the grass grew on a belt, there were a lot of wild onions, stolbunts, a sorrel and fragrant lilies of the valley. Maids and women crowds went to holidays behind onions, a sorrel and flowers, came back home with songs. In the wood without stopping the cuckoo cuckooed, rooks shouted and chirped in every possible way a various bird’s kingdom.
On the Trinity’s eve all were on the near field. The wife Yafima, Anna Ondrevna, with his sister Masha, Vukol’s mother, since spring staying with the father heated a bath. The log hut was locked on the padlock. From a village fence continually passed coming back from the field, but spring evening, absolutely starless, was so dark dense and damp darkness, the dusty road is so soft and silent that only on an easy pobryakivaniye of a harness it was possible to guess that someone passed from the begun to creak village fence gate, and only slightly the noticeable spot moved on the road.
Here the pobryakivaniye approached a log hut, from darkness the low flat arch and the cart with the horse who was silently afraid on a dense, creeping grass was hardly considerably allocated. Two shadows — women’s and children’s got out of the cart.
— And we здеся! — the children’s voice cried from darkness.
The female shadow approached closer and gasped joyfully: on a zavalinka Elizar sat. Vukol and Lavrusha, giggling, were linked and not danced, not fought in darkness.
— We sit yes we wait! — Elizar told getting up. — Anybody there is no house!
— Eka! — the grandmother sighed — two women of the house! I ban, tea, heat! Children, a poklichta, run behind them! Ah you, darling!
Elizar dissolved creaking gate, entered Chalka into the yard, began to unharness a horse. The grandmother helped.
— Do not work, Elizarushka, men will approach now!.
Masha with a key came, children, behind them Ondrevn’s molodayka came running… Unlocked a log hut, entered. Molodayka lit not a splinter, but a tin seven-linear lamp, previously having cleaned glass the brush.
— The lamp was got! — Elizar was surprised.
— And how? — brisk Ondrevna laughed. — Tea, is better and better than a splinter!
— She at us got any news! — good-natured the grandmother from a closet responded.
On windows there were in pots flowers with short flights of stairs from splinters, blossomed scarlet and lilac hand bells. A floor was washed purely up, scraped out, the log hut as though became cheerful.
— That the young hostess means! — the guest joked.
— God grant! — the grandmother told, spreading a stoleshnik. — And we are also glad! The grandfather to a spervonachal grumbled, and теперя and most ndravitsya! Anything! as they say, the znayka teaches Dunno! The kind wife will preserve the house, and thin a sleeve will shake!
— The husband a cart will not bring in that the wife puts with a pot! — Elizar noticed.
— Whether for a long time to us, Elizar?
— The short-haired maid of a braid will not braid!
— How are you? — quietly Masha asked.
— Affairs — as soot is white! Anything! To our trumps all under color! Later I will tell!
Vukol told about the travel with the father by huge steamship with here such red wheels, to a black pipe from which there is a smoke and there is such whistle that you will become deaf! How they were in the city and what there, high houses: if ten log huts that are not enough to put of one on another — and!
The laurels listened and were surprised. After long separation at them was much what to report each other.
— And our Karyukh the zherebenochka brought! — he interrupted the nephew. — Pretty, all in it and is allowed to stroke!
This native log hut from a polatyama and a familiar bar, with white subfenny and a closet of Vukol behind it loved, he remembered winter evenings when the grandmother told fairy tales, the grandfather spun bast shoes, and they with Laurels traveled, as well as now, on a bar on polat. The familiar picture “As Mice of a Cat Buried” still hung on a wall, but he looked at it critically, with a smile. Too spoke of grandmother’s fairy tales haughtily as read in books, mysterious for Laurels, about the knight Don Quixote and his faithful armourbearer, about underwater travel of the captain Nemo by all seas and oceans.
“Big” sat at a table. There arrived the grandfather and Yafim, the father Vukola told something. Friends did not listen to what was told below: they above, under the ceiling, had talk.
After Yafim’s marriage the wall about polaty was pasted over with paper on which fancy patterns from the proceeding rain were formed. Yellowish spots merged in the opinion of Vukol in the imagined picture: as though astride horses Tatars, in sharp caps, in striped dressing gowns, fly at full speed with curve sabers in hands.
— You see? — he asked Monastery, showing on a wall. — This horses, and on them — Tatars with sabers.
— I see nothing! — the Laurels answered.
— And I see! yes you look longer — and you will see! There are horses, here Tatars, here sabers!
But the Laurels so saw nothing. He only partly trusted the nephew, from his assurances considered a lot of things lies. Their conversation often resembled Don Quixote’s conversation with his armourbearer.
— To lie — not to be tired, would be to listen to whom! — mistrustfully the little peasant laughed.
The voice of Elizar who told at cheerful attention of listeners too did not stop.
— Lomonosov was from simple fishermen, and reached that the tsar accepted it… There was Kulibin, the mechanic self-educated person, and that there was still Englishman Fulton… Was much such people for whom great brains worked, and more and more poverty left them…
— And at us too such is, the miller Chelyak — was heard the grandfather’s voice. — Sly fellow! The fan to build! On a leg to connect you with it!
— I know Chelyak, interpreted with him… both of us lack one: sciences! The bird to feathers, and the person the doctrine is red! But — to study never late. Also I will achieve the!
— And you remember — Vukol said — we have a picture “The Bay of Naples Has a Family of Fishermen”? I look every day — I will not see enough! The sea is drawn there, children bathe, and ashore the fisherman’s daughter is beautiful before, just as in the fairy tale…
— Nourishingly, it is visible, live! by the sea! — efficiently noticed Laurels. — Smooth! And it is good to bathe also at us, on Print! Let’s go morning! children we will collect to play an arable land!
— Better in robbers! — Vukol objected and began to tell about robbers.
They vividly went down on a bar. Ondrevna put them linen and showed the door for a door. On backs the spark shone. The bath was similar to a dugout with a small window. Undressing in a cold waiting room, continued a talk. To drive away fear, laughed. The grandfather with Yafim came to a waiting room soon.
Having returned to a log hut, also did not notice how fell asleep.
* * *
Woke up late in the morning: the sun shone, hens outside cackled. The Russian furnace burned, in a closet of the woman cooked festive foods. From the yard the grandfather entered.
— Children wake — he told — behind a grass in zaymishche I go!
At these words Monasteries jumped and began to shake the nephew for a shoulder:
— Behind a grass! behind a grass!
Wiping eyes, ran out through an outer entrance hall on a porch — to wash: the clay washstand hung there on a string in the summer, the pure towel, but not a dirty rag as was before, to Ondrevniny orders hung in the same place.
Outside there was Chalka harnessed in the cart. In the cart the braid and the axe lay.
— Well, sit down, swindlers! — good-natured the grandfather told, dissolving gate.
It jumped in the cart, and Chalka, winding the head, zatrusit to the alley to descent in a lugovina where shone постепок and the wood moved under wind. It was from a distance heard as in the Rooky Mane rooks shouted, flickered a black grid over nests in branches of sprawling oaks.
The bridge, as always, was in deep dirt. For pedestrians the thick tree was thrown through a stream. Hardly got out to the abrupt coast as immediately came to be under the green arch of the wood stretching the wide branches over their heads. Chalka ran a slow, complacent lynx, footfall of his not grounded hoofs softly was given in the wood.
Through branches silver of the Print lake flashed, boundaries of oaks white cups of lilies of the valley, juicy stolbunets, bushes of a dogrose and unknown bright red berries flashed.
— Their wolves eat — explained Laurels to the nephew — on the Spiked glade strawberry is, and in the fall — торон, blackberry… Water, a grass теперя on Spiked high, dense sold!.
About half an hour went on the soft dampish forest road. Somewhere in the depth of the wood the cuckoo cuckooed. Morning was solar, warm, given to drink by freshness of the juicy, shady thicket rustling with infinite thoughtful and tender noise.
The grandfather was silent, occasionally patting Chalka vozhzhy what Chalka answered with friendly nods.
At last, left the Spiked glade. It was the wide flat valley in the depth of which there were giants the black poplars publishing the equal, dense, triumphing rumble.
— And what behind them? — the nephew asked the uncle.
— For sokoryam — Proran… for Proran — Vzmor! Hvorostnik grows there, high yes long… at-at, Proran — he angry yes bystry, deep — a bottom is not present!.
The grandfather suspended a horse and moved down after the journey in a high juicy grass. Then got down and, having whetted a scythe whetstone, waved it. It as if effortlessly, for fun, slightly moved a braid, slightly наклонясь forward, and the grass and a nikla, and laid down ranks, bared the cut earth.
The grandfather mowed, and children armfuls dragged a grass to the cart. At last, the old man lifted a big bundle and put it in the cart. Chalka tastefully chewed a grass — juicy, damp from morning dew. Having loaded the cart, the grandfather placed children on grass top, told:
— Trample down!
They cheerfully trampled down with pleasure smelling grass and joyfully laughed. Then mudflows. From a bright green mowed grass their uncovered heads — one fair-haired, another blond, and two pairs of laughing eyes were seen. To sit now it was soft. The grandfather jumped on a cart nakleska, pulled reins, and Chalka, winding the head, with a grass bunch in teeth, willingly drove the cart back on the former road. The crude grass lay densely. It was heavy to Chalke to trot, but he, probably, tried.
The zealous country horse was not young any more, but never waited for a whip, carried шагисто, ran a dispute, and in dark nights did not go astray, having remarkable memory on roads. It was the old friend and the grandfather’s companion. Even now, when Chalki’s strengths became any more not those that before, he still in the old manner strove to trot with a heavy cart. But was tired soon and only wound the head as if wanted to tell: “Eh, old age!”
It was pleasant to come back home, lying on a soft, damp, fragrant grass. On an edge the grandfather stopped Chalka, got down, took out the axe and cut down a young curly birch, having thrust its komly under a grass “for a Trinity”.
— It is our, hrestyansky, the wood — explained Laurels to the nephew — there was a wish — cut down, nothing for it will be, and before the wood was lordly… the barin died long ago, the wood to us departed! And behind a village fence the merchant bought Dubrov near the village where the mansion remained, together with the earth…
— Here and there is not enough earth! — the grandfather interfered — swindlers! That there was the barin an earth, and now — a kuptsova!. Than you will live if you will grow up?.
Children could not answer, puzzly looked at each other. The wood rustled, green walls stood on both sides of the road, the green arch met over their heads. Again the Print lake flashed aside.
— Let’s reach to the bridge — we will get down — whispered to the friend of Monasteries — on Print we will run!
When drove on the bridge, there was misfortune: the cart got stuck in dirt; Chalka hardly held on it to the dry coast and suddenly stopped knee-deep in the dense bog. How many the grandfather urged on it, it only wound and shook the head.
— Eh, old age! — with a sigh the grandfather told and on a shaft got out to the coast. — You what you sit, swindlers? Get down!
Children got on a shaft after the grandfather. Sucked in Chalka to the bog more and more deeply.
Then the grandfather выпряг him also looked around: whether looks who? But on a holiday behind the village was nobody.
— Eh, old age! — again the grandfather repeated, took Chalka one hand for a tail, and another for a mane, planted the feet against the coast so that bast shoes it went to the soft earth, terribly began to roar on Chalka and — pulled out it on the dry place. Then looked back on the parties again, became on chalkino place in shafts, all napruzhinitsya, the back stooped, the head left between big shoulders, and the long beard almost touched the earth. Panting, the grandfather rocked here and there and took out a cart then wiped a sleeve a bald head, put Chalka and suddenly, having angrily threatened with a whip handle, severely told children:
— You motrit, swindlers, do not stir! I will bungle!
And though they knew that the grandfather never before flogged anybody but only he swore and in rare instances raised, however involuntarily were afraid: they were frightened by its force; has to be therefore it also never did not beat anybody: was afraid of the force.
— We on Sittsevo will go! — prositelno told Laurels.
The grandfather silently sat down on a cart, pulled reins and, already driving off, waved on them a hand.
Having got over through a stream on the cut-down tree, they ran a forest footpath to the lake. Both were without caps, barefoot and already on the run took off from themselves shirts it is to plunge into the water rather. Print sparkled in the sun between oak trunks. When ran up to the high green coast, on an unruffled surface of the lake, on its middle, floated, being removed, two big proud birds with silver feathers, with long necks and black noses.
— Swans! — whispered Laurels, threw a shirt on a grass and wanted was with running start to plunge into the water, but on the usual place of bathing someone floundered about and swam, lifting legs the whole column of the splashes sparkling in the sun.
— Children! — cheerfully the chest female voice cried — you want, I will get a cockleshell?
— This is Grunka! — said Laurels in low tones.
The girl disappeared under water and long there remained, only circles on water went.
Suddenly she jumped out up to a breast over water and with laughter threw it a big brilliant silvery sink.
The laurels bent to lift a gift, but Vukol as if was dumbfounded, without taking eyes from Gruni. Around the head her snake twisted the black big braid intertwined in white water colors. The dark face with eagle eyes and thin, as if drawn, eyebrows affected it: it seemed to it similar to the person, somewhere seen by it… perhaps, in a dream…
Grunya swam up to the coast where over water, on low to a tree bough, her dress hung, and rose from water already in a shirt: the shirt was in covering on a breast and on hips and only around a slender waist lay freely, Unwound the long thick plait which fell below knees, squeezed out of it water, threw a lilac dress, and the head tied with a red bandage. By sight it was years sixteen.
— Lavrusha! This is the nephew, perhaps, yours? — loudly Grunya asked, and her voice began to sound as a pipe.
— Nephew! — solidly the Laurels answered.
Grunya looked at Vukol with the unusual eyes, and it seemed to him that she watches derisively.
— What is your name?
Vukol stood pale, looking to the earth, and, as captivated, lost gift for speaking, could utter nothing.
— See you, exactly what tsarevitch!
Light step there passed Grunya by it and, passing, again burned it with a quizzical glance. It disappeared in the wood, singing the lingering song.
— Eh, what! — Vukol with surprise told — it is similar to the fisherman’s daughter!
The laurels did not understand it:
— She is not the fisherman’s daughter, it Listratov the daughter, at them rolls in money!
They plunged into the water and floated. Then, having held the breath, fell by a bottom, opened eyes there as before did, and through water as through a chintz, saw each other sitting at a sandy bottom. Therefore the transparent lake — Print was called. Came up upward, splashed and floated as frogs, but Vukol’s memory did not leave an image of the beauty; he wanted to see as soon as possible again it and to look, look endlessly.
IV
In the wood the cart with two horsemen drove. The miller Chelyak, stocky, wide, all convex as if a bucket-chelyak which pour grain drove the horse. Elizar sat next. In a back of the cart some construction from a popular print and a wire was attached.
When the cart drove in the wood, the miller stopped a horse.
— Tprr!. climb, a postrelyata! on Proran we go!
Children scrambled in the cart, and it zadrebezzhat on the familiar forest road.
After the cart the youth — guys and maids, as always to a holiday went groups. The miller knocked on a popular print and told laughing:
— Мотови́ ло-готови́ ло on a prozvanye “фир” — at it there are a lot of holes!
Children laughed, though did not understand intricate words of Chelyak.
— Flying carpet! — smiling, Elizar added and, having turned back to Chelyak, continued the interrupted conversation: — Whether it will be possible whether is not present, but there is no doubt that the science will achieve the and the person will fly as a bird…
The miller trifled a broad chestnut beard and anxiously frowned shaggy eyebrows. His old kazinetovy jacket was through impregnated with flour dust.
— Science! — derisively it pokryakhtet, jumping up on potholes — and where to take it to the man? You understand everything!. I from time immemorial — the miller: I look at gear wheels, at all mill structure, I look as the mill waves wings, but cannot depart!. and here the thought was! Twenty years I build, but I cannot reach… there is no help from anybody! My car is only the first experience, model… shortcomings at it — a plenty… there are no words, I tested it — went do
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