A downpour erupted with deafening thunderclaps.

Exercise 1

Name the characteristics of an artistic style of speech. Where is the artistic style of speech used? What are its main features?

Exercise 2

Determine your speech style and justify your answer. What is the topic and the main idea of this text? How does this text make you feel? By what means artistic expression the author creates poetic images and transmits the general emotional mood poems?

I like that you are not sick with me.
I like that I'm not sick with you.
That the globe is never heavy
It won't float away under our feet.
I like that you can be funny -
Loose - and not play with words,
And do not blush with a suffocating wave,
Sleeves touching slightly.
I also like that you are with me
Calmly hug the other one,
Don't read to me in hellfire
burn because I don’t kiss you.
What is my gentle name, my gentle, not
You mention it day and night - in vain...
That never in church silence
They will not sing over us: Hallelujah!
Thank you with my heart and hand
Because you have me - without knowing yourself! –
So love: for my night's peace,
For the rare meeting at sunset hours,
For our non-walks under the moon,
For the sun is not above our heads, -
Because you are sick - alas! - not by me,
Because I am sick - alas! - not by you.

(M. Tsvetaeva)

Exercise 3

Determine your speech style and justify your answer. What is the theme and main idea of this text? Find comparisons, metaphors and personifications in the text, what is their role in the text?

Is it not so for you, Rus', that you are rushing along like a brisk, unstoppable troika? The road beneath you smokes, the bridges rattle, everything falls behind and is left behind. The contemplator, amazed by God's miracle, will stop: is this not lightning thrown from the sky? What does it mean terrifying movement? And what kind of unknown power is contained in these horses, unknown to the light? Eh, horses, horses, what the
horses! Are there whirlwinds in your manes? Is there a sensitive ear burning in your vein? They heard a familiar song from above, together and at once they strained their copper breasts and, almost without touching the ground with their hooves, they turned into elongated lines flying through the air, and all inspired by God rushes!.. Rus', where are you rushing? Give an answer. Doesn't give an answer. The bell rings with a wonderful ringing; The air, torn into pieces, thunders and becomes the wind; everything that is on earth flies past, and, looking askance, other peoples and states step aside and give way to it.

(N.V. Gogol)

Exercise 4

Read and compare these texts. Which text do you prefer, and why? What means of artistic expression did the authors use? Write an essay on the topic “Thunderstorm”. Write out examples of epithets, comparisons, metaphors, personifications from the text.

1) The darkness that came from Mediterranean Sea, covered the city hated by the procurator. The hanging bridges connecting the temple with the terrible Anthony Tower disappeared, an abyss fell from the sky and flooded the winged gods over the hippodrome, the Hasmonean palace with loopholes, bazaars, caravanserais, alleys, ponds... Yershalaim disappeared - great city as if he did not exist in the world. Everything was devoured by darkness, frightening every living thing in Yershalaim and its environs. A strange cloud came from the sea towards the end of the day, the fourteenth day spring month Nissan
She had already leaned with her belly on the Bald Skull, where the executioners hastily stabbed the executed, she fell on the temple in Yershalaim, slid down the hill in smoky streams and flooded Lower City. It poured into the windows and drove people from the crooked streets into their houses. She was in no hurry to give up her moisture and gave only light. As soon as the smoky black brew was ripped open by the fire, a great block of the temple with a sparkling scaly cover flew up from the pitch darkness. But it faded away in an instant, and the temple plunged into a dark abyss. Several times he grew out of it and failed again, and each time this failure was accompanied by the roar of a catastrophe.
Other trembling flickers called forth from the abyss the palace of Herod the Great, opposite the temple on the western hill, and terrible eyeless golden statues flew up to the black sky, heavy thunderclaps drove the golden idols into the darkness.
The rain poured unexpectedly, and then the thunderstorm turned into a hurricane. In the very place where, around noon, near a marble bench in the garden, the procurator and the high priest were talking, with a blow similar to a cannon, a cypress tree was broken like a cane. Along with water dust and hail, plucked roses, magnolia leaves, small branches and sand were carried onto the balcony under the columns; a hurricane tormented the garden.
Some time passed, and the veil of water before the procurator’s eyes began to thin. No matter how fierce the hurricane was, it was weakening. The branches no longer cracked or fell. The thunderclaps and flashes became less frequent. It was no longer a purple blanket with a white edge that floated over Yershalaim, but an ordinary gray rearguard cloud. The thunderstorm was blowing towards the Dead Sea.

(According to M. Bulgakov)

2) If Chichikov had listened, he would have learned many details that related to him personally; but his thoughts were so occupied with his subject that only one strong clap of thunder made him wake up and look around him: the whole sky was completely covered with clouds, and the dusty post road was sprinkled with drops of rain. Finally thunderclap the next time it sounded louder and closer, and the rain suddenly poured out of a bucket.
First, taking an oblique direction, he lashed to one side of the wagon, then to the other, then, changing the pattern of attack and becoming completely straight, he drummed straight up its body; the spray finally began to hit his face.

(N.V. Gogol)

3) A downpour broke out with deafening thunderclaps and dazzlingly fast, fiery snakes of lightning as we approached Sukhodol in the evening. A black-purple cloud fell heavily to the north-west and majestically occupied half the sky opposite. Flat, clear and deathly pale green plain of grain under its huge background, bright and unusually fresh
there was fine wet grass on high road. Wet horses, as if they had immediately lost weight, splashed, their horseshoes shining, through the blue mud, the tarantass rustled wetly...

(I.A. Bunin)

4) But the advanced clouds are already beginning to cover the sun; there it looked in last time, illuminated the terribly gloomy side of the horizon and disappeared. The whole neighborhood suddenly changes and takes on a gloomy character. Now the aspen grove began to tremble; the leaves become some kind of cloudy white color, standing out brightly against the purple background of the clouds, they make noise and spin; The tops of large birch trees begin to sway, and tufts of dry grass fly across the road. Swifts and white-breasted swallows, as if with the intention of stopping us, soar around the chaise and fly under the very chests of the horses; jackdaws with disheveled wings somehow fly sideways in the wind; the edges of the leather apron with which we are fastened begin to rise, letting gusts of damp wind pass towards us and, swinging, hitting the body of the chaise. Lightning flashes as if in the chaise itself, blinds the vision and for an instant illuminates the gray cloth, the basson and the figure of Volodya pressed against the corner. At the same second, a majestic roar is heard above your head, which, as if rising higher and higher, wider and wider along a huge spiral line, gradually intensifies and turns into a deafening crash, involuntarily making you tremble and hold your breath. The Wrath of God! How much poetry there is in this common thought!

(L.N. Tolstoy)

Exercise 5

Write it off. Make a plan for a comparative portrait of Khor and Kalinich - characters in I. Turgenev’s story.

I. On the horn of the hut, a bald old man of short stature, broad-shouldered and stocky, Khor himself met me.<...>The shape of his face reminded S. Krat, the same high knobby forehead, the same small eyes, the same snub nose.<...>
He seemed to feel (?) his dignity, spoke and moved slowly from time to time... he sang... under his long mustache.
II. We drove at a pace outside the village and a man of about forty caught up with us. tall thin with a small head bent back. It was Kalinich. I liked his kind, stuffy, dark face (in some places) marked with pockmarks (at) first glance. Kalinich, as I found out, after every day I went hunting with the bar... Kalinich was a man of the most cheerful, most gentle disposition, constantly humming (in) a low voice... carefree... looked in all directions, spoke a little (in) his nose, smiling He squinted his (light) blue eyes and often took his hand to his lively wedge-shaped beard. He walked slowly, but with long steps, lightly supporting himself with a long and thin stick.<...>
I admired his face for a long time... meek and clear as the evening sky.
III. Khor was a positive person, a practical administrator, a rationalist, a rationalist, Kalinich, on the contrary, belonged to the ranks of idealists, romantics, enthusiastic and dreamy people.<...>Kalinich stood closer... to nature, but to people, to society...

1. Find in full text the story contains other portrait details of Khor and Kapynich. Write them out.
2. Prepare a comparative portrait characteristic named characters.
3. Write about a person you know well, who, in your opinion, is similar to Khorem or Kalinich. What type of human personality appeals to you?

Exercise 6

Prince Andrei, leaning on the railing, silently looked along the flood glittering from the setting sun.<...>
“We must live, we must love, we must believe,” said Pierre, “that we do not live now only on this piece of land, but have lived and will live forever there, in everything (he pointed to the sky).
Prince Andrey stood with his elbows on the railing of the ferry, and, listening to Pierre, did not take his eyes off, looking at the red reflection of the sun on the blue flood. Pierre fell silent. It was completely silent. The ferry had landed long ago, and only the waves of the current hit the bottom of the ferry with a faint sound. It seemed to Prince Andrei that this rinsing of the waves was saying to Pierre’s words: “It’s true, believe it.”
Prince Andrei sighed and with a radiant, childish, tender gaze looked into Pierre’s flushed, enthusiastic, but increasingly timid face in front of his foremost friend.
- Yes, if only it were so! - he said. “However, let’s go sit down,” added Prince Andrei, and, leaving the ferry, he looked at the sky, which Pierre pointed out to him, and for the first time after Austerlitz he saw that high, eternal sky which he saw while lying on the Field of Austerlitz, and something that had long fallen asleep, something best that was in him, suddenly joyfully and youthfully woke up in his soul. This feeling disappeared as soon as Prince Andrei returned to the usual conditions of life, but he knew that this feeling, which he did not know how to develop, lived in him. The meeting with Pierre was for Prince Andrei the era from which, although in appearance it was the same, but in the inner world his new life began.
In the evening, Prince Andrei and Pierre got into the carriage and went to the Bald Mountains. Prince Andrei, glancing at Pierre, occasionally broke the silence with speeches that proved that he was in a good mood.<...>
Pierre thought that Prince Andrei was unhappy, that he was mistaken, that he did not know the true light6 and that Pierre should come to his aid, enlighten him and lift him up. But as soon as Pierre figured out how and what he would become, he had a presentiment that Prince Andrei with one word, one argument would throw away all his teaching, and he was afraid to start, afraid to expose his beloved shrine to the possibility of ridicule.
“No, why do you think,” Pierre suddenly began, lowering his head and taking on the appearance of a butting bull, “why do you think so?” You shouldn't think like that.
- What am I thinking about? - asked Prince Andrei in surprise.
- About life, about the purpose of a person.<...>
Prince Andrei silently, looking ahead, listened to Pierre's speech. Several times, unable to hear from the noise of the stroller, he repeated the unheard words from Pierre. By the special sparkle that lit up in the eyes of Prince Andrei, and by his silence, Pierre saw that his words were not in vain, that Prince Andrei would not interrupt him and would not laugh at his words. (L. Tolstoy.)

Pierre outlined his thoughts on the purpose of a person in the previous, chapter XI of the second part of the second volume of the novel - in with Andrei Bolkonsky. State them briefly (in writing) and prepare oral communication about them.

Exercise 7

Parse the literary text.

- Why don’t you keep cows, Matryona Vasilyevna?
“Eh, Ignatich,” Matryona explained, standing in an unclean apron in the kitchen doorway and turning to my table. - I have enough milk from a goat. If you get a cow, it will eat me with my feet. Don’t mow the canvas - they have their own owners, and there is no mowing in the forest - the forestry is the owner, and on the collective farm they don’t tell me - I’m not a collective farmer, they say, now. Yes, they and the collective farmers, down to the whitest flies, are all on the collective farm, all on the collective farm, and from under the snow - what kind of grass?.. As usual, they were boiling with hay from the day of Petrov to Ilyin. The grass was considered to be honey.
So, one goat had to collect hay for Matryona - great work. In the morning she took a bag and a sickle and went to the places that she remembered, where the grass grew along the edges, along the road, along the islands in the swamp. Having filled the bag with fresh heavy grass, she dragged it home and laid it out in a layer in her yard. A bag of grass made dried hay - a fork6.
The new chairman, recently sent from the city, first of all cut off the vegetable gardens of all the disabled people. Matryona left fifteen acres of sand, but ten acres remained empty behind the fence. However, even for fifteen hundred square meters the collective farm Matryona sipped. When there weren’t enough hands, when the women refused very stubbornly, the chairman’s wife came to Matryona. She was also a city woman, decisive, short gray short coat and a menacing look, as if from a military woman.
She entered the hut and, without saying hello, looked sternly at Matryona. Matryona was in the way.
“So-so,” the chairman’s wife said separately. - Comrade6 Grigorieva! We will have to help the collective farm! We'll have to go take out the manure tomorrow!
Matryona's face turned apologetic, as if she was ashamed of the chairman's wife, that she could not pay her for her work.
“Well,” she said. - I'm sick, of course. And she is no longer involved in your case. - And then hastily corrected herself: - What time should I arrive?
- And take your pitchforks! - the chairwoman instructed and left, rustling her hard skirt.
- Wow! - Matryona blamed after. - And take your pitchforks! There are no shovels or pitchforks on the collective farm. And I live without a man, who will give me 6?..
And then I thought all evening:
- What can I say, Ignatich! This work is neither to the post nor to the railing. You stand, leaning on a shovel, and wait for the factory whistle to ring at twelve. Moreover, women will start to settle scores, who came out and who didn’t come out. When we used to work on our own, there was no sound, just oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-ooh-ooh-ooh-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-oạ cạpạ cạpạ cạpạ way way.
Still, in the morning she left with her pitchfork.
But not only the collective farm, but any distant relative or just a neighbor also came to Matryona in the evening and said:
- Tomorrow, Matryona, you will come to help me. We'll dig up the potatoes.
And Matryona could not refuse. She left her line of work, went to help her neighbor and, returning, still said without a shadow of envy:
- Oh, Ignatich, and she has big potatoes! I dug in a hurry, I didn’t want to leave the site, by God I really did!
Moreover, not a single plowing of the garden was done without Matryona. The Talnovsky women clearly established that digging up your own garden with a shovel is difficult and takes longer than taking a plow and harnessing six of them to plow six gardens for yourself. That’s why they called Matryona to help.
- Well, did you pay her? - I had to ask later.
- She doesn't take money. You can’t help but hide it for her.<...>Misunderstood and further abandoned by her husband, who buried six children, but did not have a sociable disposition, a stranger to her sisters and sisters-in-law, funny, foolishly working for others for free - she did not accumulate property for death. A dirty white goat, a lanky cat, ficus trees...
We all lived next to her and did not understand that she was the very righteous person without whom, according to the proverb, the village would not stand.
Neither the city.
Not all the land is ours.(A. Solzhenitsyn.)

Exercise 8

Write the words in two columns. For each of the commonly used words (1st column), find the corresponding word of high, poetic style (2nd column).

Lifeless, lifeless, heartlessness, brotherhood, future, eternal peace (after death), prophetic, dragged along, in the name of, arise, in the presence of someone, stand up, neck, verb (speech, word), eyes, voice, voice, city , city (city), coming, lips, right hand, for the benefit of someone, something, to achieve, the unity of all people, based on the Christian understanding of love, mercy, mutual understanding; hard-heartedness, be fulfilled, cheeks, forehead, husbands, husbands, torment, for the good, be filled, vow, possessing the gift of foresight, homeland, eyes, in the face of something, someone; under the sign right hand, happened, for the sake of, for the sake of someone, something; homeland, accomplished, wandered, word (speech), devour, acquire, judge, judge, sons, sons, sons, sons, solemn promise, die, rest, rest, lips, teachers, teachers, characterized by something, flower, flower , forehead, neck, cheeks.

In each high-style word, find a morpheme, including the root, or other sounds, morphological features, giving it a stylistic coloring. Draw a conclusion about the means that give the word a touch of solemnity and rhetoric. (Orally.)

Exercise 9

Read the text. What do you see as the difference between poetic language, or language fiction, from everyday, everyday language? (In writing.)

Language of fiction This:

1) the language in which they are created works of art(his vocabulary, grammar, phonetics);

2) poetic language- a system of rules underlying literary texts, both prose and poetic, their creation and reading (interpretation); these rules are always different from the corresponding rules of everyday language, even when, as, for example, in modern Russian, the lexicon, grammar and phonetics of both are the same; in this sense, the language of fiction, expressing aesthetic function national language, is the subject of poetics...(Yu. S. Stepanov.)

Exercise 10

In the novel “Eugene Onegin” A. Pushkin widely uses vocabulary, figures of speech characteristic of the language of one or another character - Onegin, Lensky and others, characteristic of them verbal images. Select two or three passages in which, upon careful reading, you can identify elements of language, verbal images, characteristic of:

a) for Onegin;

b) for Lensky;

c) for Tatyana Larina.

Comment on them: what realities of reality are the vocabulary and verbal images associated with, how do they characterize the character, what are the dominant stylistic shades and intonations? Prepare to read the analyzed passages, trying to convey intonation inner world character.

The Sukhodolsk peasants visited Lunevo not for the same purposes as the courtyard servants, but more about the land; but they also entered our house as if they were their own. They bowed to their father on the waist, kissed his hand, then, shaking their hair, kissed him, Natalya, and us on the lips three times. They brought gifts of honey, eggs, and towels. And we, who grew up in the fields, sensitive to smells, greedy for them no less than for songs and legends, forever remembered that special, pleasant, hemp-like smell that we felt when kissing the dry land; They also remembered that their gifts smelled of the old steppe village: honey - of blooming buckwheat and rotten oak hives, towels - punka, chicken huts from the time of grandfather... The Sukhodolsk men did not tell anything. What was there to tell them! They didn’t even have legends. Their graves are unmarked. And lives are so similar to each other, so meager and without a trace! For the fruits of their labors and worries were only bread, the real bread that is eaten. They dug ponds in the rocky bed of the Kamenka River, which had long dried up. But the ponds are unreliable - they dry up. They built houses. But their dwellings are short-lived: at the slightest spark they burn to the ground... So what drew us all even to the bare pasture, to the huts and ravines, to the ruined estate of Sukhodol?

II

We happened to get to the estate that gave birth to Natalya’s soul, which ruled her entire life, to the estate about which we had heard so much, already in late adolescence.

I remember it like it was yesterday. A downpour broke out with deafening thunderclaps and dazzlingly fast, fiery snakes of lightning as we approached Sukhodol in the evening. A black-purple cloud fell heavily to the north-west and majestically occupied half the sky opposite. The plain of grain under its huge background was flat, clear and deathly pale green; the fine wet grass on the high road was bright and unusually fresh. Wet horses, as if they had immediately lost weight, splashed, their horseshoes shining, through the blue mud, the tarantass rustled damply... And suddenly, at the very turn to Sukhodol, we saw in the tall wet rusty a tall and strange figure in a robe and a shlyk, the figure of either an old man or an old woman beating a piebald cow with a twig. As we approached, the twig began to work harder, and the cow clumsily, wagging its tail, ran out onto the road. And the old woman, shouting something, headed towards the tarantass and, approaching, stretched her pale face towards us. Looking with fear into the black crazy eyes, feeling the touch of a sharp cold nose and the strong smell of the hut, we kissed the woman who came up. Isn't this Baba Yaga herself? But a tall shlyk made of some dirty rag stuck out on Baba Yaga’s head, on naked body She was wearing a torn, waist-length wet robe that did not cover her skinny breasts. And she screamed as if we were deaf, as if with the goal of starting a furious battle. And by the scream we realized: it was Aunt Tonya.

Claudia Markovna, fat, small, with a gray beard, with unusually lively eyes, who was sitting near open window in a house with two large porches, she was knitting a thread sock and, raising her glasses to her forehead, looked at the pasture that merged with the yard. Natalya, who was standing on the right porch, bowed low and with a quiet smile - small, tanned, wearing bast shoes, a red woolen skirt and a gray shirt with wide neckline around a dark, wrinkled neck. Looking at that neck, at the thin collarbones, at the tired, sad eyes, I remember thinking: it was she who grew up with our father - a long time ago, but right here, where from my grandfather’s oak house, which burned many times, this one remained, nondescript, from the garden - bushes and a few old birches and poplars, from services and people - a hut, a barn, clay barn and a glacier overgrown with wormwood and beetroot... There was a smell of a samovar, questions started pouring in; crystal vases for jam, golden spoons, thinned to maple leaf, sugar candies, saved in case of guests. And while the conversation was heating up, intensely friendly after a long quarrel, we went to wander through the darkening rooms, looking for a balcony, an exit to the garden.

Everything was black from time, simple, rough in these empty, low rooms, which retained the same layout as in the time of grandfather, cut down from the remains of the very ones in which he lived. In the corner of the footman's room there was a large blackened image of St. Mercury of Smolensk, the one whose iron sandals and helmet are kept on the salt in the ancient cathedral of Smolensk. We heard: Mercury was a noble man, called to salvation from the Tatars of the Smolensk region by the voice of the icon Mother of God Hodegetria Guidebook. Having defeated the Tatars, the saint fell asleep and was beheaded by his enemies. Then, taking his head in his hands, he came to the city gates in order to tell what had happened... And it was creepy to look at the Suzdal image of a headless man, holding in one hand a deathly bluish head in a helmet, and in the other an icon of the Guide - at this, like they said that the treasured image of the grandfather, which survived several terrible fires, split in flames, was thickly bound in silver and kept on back side his genealogy of the Khrushchevs, written under titles. Exactly in harmony with it, heavy iron bolts both at the top and bottom hung on the heavy halves of the doors. The floorboards in the hall were excessively wide, dark and slippery, the windows were small, with lifting frames. We walked through the hall, a smaller double of the one where the Khrushchevs sat down at the table with the Tatar women, into the living room. Here, opposite the doors to the balcony, there once stood a piano, played by Aunt Tonya, who was in love with officer Voitkevich, Pyotr Petrovich’s comrade. And then there were open doors to the sofa room, to the coal room, where grandfather’s chambers had once been...

The evening was gloomy. In the clouds, beyond the outskirts of the cut-down garden, behind the half-naked barn and silvery poplars, lightning flashed, revealing for a moment the cloudy pink-golden mountains. The rain probably did not capture Troshin's forest, which darkened far beyond the garden, on the slopes behind the ravines. From there came the dry, warm smell of oak, mixed with the smell of greenery, with a damp soft wind running over the tops of the birch trees that had survived from the alley, through the tall nettles, weeds and bushes around the balcony. And the deep silence of the evening, of the steppe, of remote Rus' reigned over everything...

“Please have tea, sir,” a quiet voice called out to us.

It was she, a participant and witness of this whole life, its main storyteller, Natalya. And behind her, looking carefully crazy eyes, bending slightly, ceremonially sliding along the dark, smooth floor, her mistress moved. She had not taken off her hat, but instead of a robe she was now wearing an old-fashioned barge dress, and a faded golden silk shawl was draped over her shoulders.

– Oh tes-vous, mes enfants? – she shouted, smiling gentilely, and her voice, clear and sharp, like the voice of a parrot, sounded strangely in the empty black rooms...

III

Just as in Natalya, in her peasant simplicity, in all her beautiful and pitiful soul generated by Sukhodol, there was charm in the ruined Sukhodol estate.

The old living room with its rickety floors smelled of jasmine. The rotten, blue-gray balcony, from which, due to the lack of steps, it was necessary to jump, was drowning in nettles, elderberries, and euonymus. On hot days, when the sun was hot, when the sunken glass doors were open and the cheerful reflection of the glass was transmitted to the dim oval mirror hanging on the wall opposite the door, we all remembered Aunt Tony’s piano, which once stood under this mirror. Once upon a time she played it, looking at the yellowed notes with titles in curlicues, and He stood behind him, firmly supporting his waist with his left hand, clenching his jaw tightly and frowning. Wonderful butterflies - in colorful cotton dresses, in Japanese outfits, and in black and purple velvet shawls - flew into the living room. And before leaving, he once heartily clapped his palm on one of them, which was tremblingly frozen on the lid of the piano. All that was left was silver dust. But when the girls, foolishly, erased it a few days later, Aunt Tonya became hysterical. We went out from the living room onto the balcony, sat on the warm boards - and thought and thought. The wind, running through the garden, brought to us the silky rustle of birches with satin-white trunks speckled with black and widely spread green branches; the wind, noisy and rustling, ran from the fields - and the green-golden oriole cried out sharply and joyfully, rushing over the white flowers behind the chattering jackdaws, who lived with numerous kin in the collapsed chimneys and in the dark attics, where there is the smell of old bricks and through the dormer windows the golden light falls in stripes on the mounds of gray-violet ash; the wind died down, the bees sleepily crawled over the flowers near the balcony, doing their leisurely work - and in the silence only the smooth, flowing, like a continuous light rain, babble of the silvery foliage of the poplars was heard... We wandered around the garden, climbing into the wilderness of the outskirts. There, on these outskirts, merging with the grain, in my great-grandfather’s bathhouse with a collapsed ceiling, in the very bathhouse where Natalya kept the mirror stolen from Pyotr Petrovich, lived white cowards. How they softly jumped out onto the threshold, how strangely, moving their mustaches and forked lips, they squinted with far-spaced, bulging eyes at the tall Tatars, henbane bushes and thickets of nettles that choked the thorns and cherry trees! And in the half-open barn lived an eagle owl. He sat on the fence, having chosen a darker place, with his ears erect, his blind yellow pupils rolling out, and he looked wild, devilish. The sun was setting far behind the garden, in the sea of grain, the evening was coming, peaceful and clear, the cuckoo was cuckooing in Trosha's forest, the pitiful notes of the old shepherd Styopa were ringing pitifully somewhere over the meadows... The owl sat and waited for the night. At night everything slept - the fields, the village, and the estate. And the owl did nothing but hoot and cry. He silently rushed around the barn, through the garden, flew to Aunt Tony’s hut, easily landed on the roof - and cried out in pain... Aunt woke up on the bench by the stove.

The first language we spoke was Sukhodolsky.

The first stories, the first songs that touched us are also from Sukhodol’s, Natalya’s, fathers’. And could anyone sing like the father, the student?

wow! They didn’t even have legends. Their graves are unmarked. And lives are so similar to each other, so meager and without a trace! For the fruits of their labors and worries were only bread, the real bread that is eaten. They dug ponds in the rocky bed of the Kamenka River, which had long dried up. But the ponds are unreliable - they dry up. They built houses. But their dwellings are short-lived: at the slightest spark they burn to the ground... So what drew us all even to the bare pasture, to the huts and ravines, to the ruined estate of Sukhodol?

We happened to get to the estate that gave birth to Natalya’s soul, which ruled her entire life, to the estate about which we had heard so much, already in late adolescence.

Wet horses, as if they had immediately lost weight, splashed, their horseshoes shining, through the blue mud, the tarantass rustled wetly... And suddenly, at the very turn to Sukhodol, we saw in the tall wet rusty a tall and strange figure in a robe and a shlyk, the figure of something like an old man , or an old woman beating a piebald, polled cow with a twig.

As we approached, the twig began to work harder, and the cow clumsily, wagging its tail, ran out onto the road. And the old woman, shouting something, headed towards the tarantass and, approaching, stretched her pale face towards us. Looking with fear into the black crazy eyes, feeling the touch of a sharp cold nose and the strong smell of the hut, we kissed the woman who came up. Isn't this Baba Yaga herself? But a tall shlyk made of some kind of dirty rag stuck out on Baba Yaga’s head, and on her naked body she was wearing a torn, waist-deep, wet robe that did not cover her skinny breasts. And she screamed as if we were deaf, as if with the goal of starting a furious battle. And by the scream we realized: it was Aunt Tonya.

Claudia Markovna, fat, small, with a gray beard, with unusually lively eyes, sitting at an open window in a house with two large windows, screamed, but cheerfully, with institutional enthusiasm, knitting a thread sock and, raising her glasses to her forehead, looking at the pasture, merged with the yard. Natalya, standing on the right porch, bowed low with a quiet smile - small, tanned, wearing bast shoes, a red woolen skirt and a gray shirt with a wide neckline around a dark, wrinkled neck. Looking at that neck, at the thin collarbones, at the tired, sad eyes, I remember thinking: it was she who grew up with our father - a long time ago, but right here, where from my grandfather’s oak house, which burned many times, this one remained, nondescript, from the garden - bushes and a few old birches and poplars, from services and people - a hut, a barn, a clay barn and a glacier overgrown with wormwood and beetroot... There was a smell of a samovar, questions started pouring in; Crystal vases for jam, golden spoons thinned to the size of a maple leaf, and sugar candies, saved for guests, began to appear from the hundred-year-old hill. And while the conversation was heating up, intensely friendly after a long quarrel, we went to wander through the darkening rooms, looking for a balcony, an exit to the garden.

Everything was black from time to time, simple, rough in

title: Buy: feed_id: 3854 pattern_id: 1079 book_

Sukhodol

I
What always struck us about Natalya was her affection for Sukhodol. Our father's foster sister, who grew up with him in the same house,
she lived with us in Lunev for seven years, she lived as a relative, and not as an ex
slave, a simple servant. And she rested for eight whole years, in her own words.
in other words, from Sukhodol, from the fact that he made her suffer. But not-
in vain it is said that no matter how you feed the wolf, he always looks into the forest: when he goes out,
Having raised us, she returned to Sukhodol again. I remember excerpts from our childhood conversations with her: “You’re an orphan, aren’t you, Natalya?” - Orphan, sir. All in their masters. Where is your grandmother Anna Grigorievna?
How early I folded my white hands! No worse than my father and mother. - Why did they die early? - Death came, so we died, sir. - No, why is it early? - So God gave it. The gentlemen gave Father up as a soldier for misdeeds, ma-
the carcass did not live to last a century because of the master’s turkey poults. I, of course, didn’t help-
well, sir, where am I, and the servants said: she was a bird house, turkey poults under her
there were countless bosses, a hail storm captured them in the pasture and killed everyone
to the last... She rushed to run, ran, looked - and the spirit was gone
terrible! - Why didn’t you get married? - Yes, the groom has not grown up yet. - No, no jokes? - Yes, they say that madam, your auntie, ordered it. That's why
I, a sinner, have been glorified as a young lady. - Well, what a young lady you are! - Exactly, young lady! - Natalya answered with a thin grin,
pinching her lips and wiping them with a dark old woman’s hand. - I’m milky-
Naya Arkady Petrovich, your second auntie... Growing up, we listened more and more attentively to what was said
in our house about Sukhodol: what was previously incomprehensible became increasingly clear, everything
spoke out more harshly strange features Sukhodolsk life. Aren't we
felt that Natalya, who had lived with our father for almost half a century,
the same life - truly dear to us, the pillar gentlemen Khrushchev! AND
it turns out that these gentlemen drove her father into a soldier, and her mother into a
What a thrill that her heart broke at the sight of the dead turkey poults! “Yes, and it’s true,” said Natalya, “when it was impossible to drop dead from
such an opportunity? Gentlemen would have driven her beyond Mozhai! And then we learned something even stranger about Sukhodol: we learned that
simpler, kinder Sukhodolsky gentlemen “were not in the whole universe,” but they learned
and what was not “hotter” than them; learned that it was dark and gloomy
ry Sukhodolsky house, that our crazy grandfather Pyotr Kirillich was killed in
this house by his illegitimate son, Gervaska, a friend of our father and two
Natalia's brother; found out that she had gone crazy a long time ago - from the unfortunate
love - and Aunt Tonya, who lived in one of the old courtyard huts near the
who lived in the Sukhodolsk estate and enthusiastically played the humming and ringing
from old age piano ecoses; found out that Natalya was also going crazy, that
Even as a girl, she fell in love with her late uncle Pyotr Petrovich for the rest of her life,
and he sent her into exile, to the Soshki farm... Our passionate dreams of Suho-
share were clear. For us, Sukhodol was only a poetic monument
logo And for Natalia? After all, it is she, as if responding to some thought of hers,
she once said with great bitterness: “Well!” In Sukhodol they sat down at the table with the Tatars! Even remember
scary. - That is, with the arapniks? - we asked. “Yes, it’s all one,” she said. - What for? - And in case of a quarrel, sir. - Did everyone quarrel in Sukhodol? - Boron God! Not a day passed without war! They were all hot - clean
powder. We were thrilled at her words and looked at each other enthusiastically: it had been a long time before
We were then presented with a huge garden, a huge estate, a house with oak logs,
crowned walls under a heavy and age-black thatched roof - and
lunch in the hall of this house: everyone sits at the table, everyone eats, throwing dice on
the floor, hunting dogs, look sideways at each other - and each has an arapine on
knees: we dreamed of that golden time when we grew up and also
Let's have lunch with arapniks on our knees. But we understood well that it was not
These arapniks brought joy to Natalya. And yet she left Lunev for
Sukhodol, the source of his dark memories. Neither your corner, nor nearby
She didn’t have any relatives there; and she no longer served in Sukhodol
his former mistress, not Aunt Tonya, but the widow of the late Pyotr Petrovich,
Klavdia Markovna. Yes, Natalya could not live without this estate. “What to do, sir: a habit,” she said modestly. “Where is the needle?”
Yes, apparently, and a thread. Where he was born, he was suitable... And she was not the only one who suffered from attachment to Sukhodol. God, what
passionate lovers of memories, what ardent adherents of Suho-
down were all the other dry land residents! Aunt Tonya lived in poverty, in a hut. And happiness, and reason, and appearance
Sukhodol deprived her of her humanity. But she never even allowed the thought
despite all the persuasion of our father, to leave our native nest and settle
in Lunev: - Yes, it’s better to hit a stone in the mountain! The father was a carefree man; for him, it seemed, nothing existed
what kind of attachments? But deep sadness heard in his stories about Su-
stilt. A long time ago he moved from Sukhodol to Lunevo, a field
the revenge of our grandmother Olga Kirillovna. But he complained almost to the very end.
his rank: - Alone, only Khrushchev remains in the world now. And even that one is not in Sukhodol! True, it often happened that, following such words, thoughts
he wandered, looking out the windows, into the field, and suddenly smiled mockingly, taking off his
wall guitar. - And Sukhodol is good, to hell with him! - he added with the same
with the sincerity with which he spoke a minute before. But he also had a Sukhodolsk soul, a soul over which there was such immeasurable
but great is the power of memories, the power of the steppe, its inert way of life, that ancient
her nepotism, which merged the village, the servants, and the house into one
Sukhodol. True, we, the Khrushchevs, are pillars, included in the sixth book, and
Among our legendary ancestors there were many noble people of the centuries-old Lithuanian
what blood and Tatar princes. But the blood of the Khrushchevs mixed with
blood of servants and villages since time immemorial. Who gave life to Pyotr Kirillich? Once-
but legends talk about it. Who was the parent of Gervaska, his killer? WITH
early years we heard that Pyotr Kirillich. Where did such a sharp
dissimilarity in the characters of the father and uncle? They also say different things about this. Milk-
His father’s sister was Natalya, and he exchanged crosses with Gervaska...
It’s long, long ago, time for the Khrushchevs to consider themselves kin to their servants and villagers.
her! In attraction to Sukhodol, in the seduction of his old times, we lived for a long time.
sister. The household, the village and the house in Sukhodol constituted one family. Rules
This family is still our ancestors. But even in posterity this can be felt for a long time -
Xia. The life of a family, clan, clan is deep, knotty, mysterious, often
scary. But with its dark depth and also legends, past and
She's strong. Sukhodol is no richer in written and other monuments than any other
ulus in the Bashkir steppe. In Rus' they are replaced by legend. And the legend yes
the song is poison for the Slavic soul! Our former servants, passionate lazy
chai, dreamers - where could they rest their souls if not in our house?
Our father remained the only representative of the Sukhodolsk gentlemen. AND
the first language we spoke was Sukhodolsky. The first stories
songs, the first songs that touched us are also Sukhodolskaya, Natalina,
fathers. And could anyone sing like the father, the student?
wow! They didn’t even have legends. Their graves are without
menny. And lives are so similar to each other, so meager and without a trace! For
the fruits of their labors and worries were only bread, real bread, which
eaten. They dug ponds in the rocky bed of a river that had long since dried up.
Kamenki. But the ponds are unreliable - they dry up. They built houses. But live
their bodies are short-lived: at the slightest spark they burn to the ground... So what
drew us all even to the bare pasture, to the huts and ravines, to the ruined
Sukhodol estate?

II
To the estate that gave birth to Natalya’s soul, which owned her entire life, to
the estate, about which we had heard so much, we had a chance to get to
late adolescence. I remember it like it was yesterday. A downpour broke out with deafening thunder
thunder strikes and dazzlingly fast, fiery snakes of lightning, when
Yes, we were approaching Sukhodol in the evening. The black-purple cloud fell heavily
flew to the north-west, majestically taking over half the sky opposite. Flat, clear
and the plain of grain lay deathly pale green under its huge background, bright and
The fine wet grass on the high road was unusually fresh. Wet,
as if horses had suddenly lost weight, they splashed, their horseshoes shining, on the blue mud
zi, the tarantass rustled wetly... And suddenly, at the very turn to Sukhodol, I saw

Current page: 1 (book has 5 pages in total)

Ivan Bunin
Sukhodol

I

What always struck us about Natalya was her affection for Sukhodol.

Our father's foster sister, who grew up with him in the same house, lived with us in Lunev for eight whole years, lived as her own, and not as ex-slave, simple courtyard. And she rested for eight whole years, according to her in my own words, from Sukhodol, from the fact that he made her suffer. But it’s not without reason that they say that no matter how you feed the wolf, he always looks into the forest; leaving, having raised us, she returned to Sukhodol again.

I remember excerpts from our childhood conversations with her:

– You’re an orphan, Natalya?

- Orphan, sir. All in their masters. Your grandmother Anna Grigorievna folded her white hands so early! No worse than my father and mother.

- Why did they die early?

“Death came, so we died, sir.”

- No, why is it early?

- So God gave it. The Lord gave the father up as a soldier for misdeeds, and Mother did not live to live because of the Lord’s turkey poults. Of course, I don’t remember, sir, where I was, but the servants said: she was a poultry farmer, there were countless turkeys under her command, a hailstorm captured them in the pasture and killed every single one of them... She rushed to run, ran, looked - and the spirit is so terrible!

- Why didn’t you get married?

- Yes, the groom has not grown up yet.

- No, no jokes?

- Yes, they say that madam, your auntie, ordered it. That’s why I, a sinner, was glorified as a young lady.

- Well, what a young lady you are!

- Exactly, young lady! - Natalya answered with a thin smile that wrinkled her lips, and wiped them with a dark old woman’s hand. - I’m Arkady Petrovich’s dairy, your second auntie...

Growing up, we listened more and more attentively to what was said in our house about Sukhodol: the previously incomprehensible became more and more clear, the strange features of Sukhodol life became more and more pronounced. Didn’t we feel that Natalya, who lived almost the same life with our father for half a century, was truly dear to us, the pillar gentlemen Khrushchev! And so it turns out that these gentlemen drove her father into a soldier, and her mother was in such trepidation that her heart broke at the sight of the dead turkey chicks!

“It’s true,” said Natalya, “how could you not fall dead from such an opportunity?” Gentlemen would have driven her beyond Mozhai!

And then we learned something even stranger about Sukhodol: we learned that there were no simpler, kinder Sukhodol gentlemen “in the whole universe,” but we also learned that there were none “hotter” than them; We learned that the old Sukhodolsky house was dark and gloomy, that our crazy grandfather Pyotr Kirillich was killed in this house by his illegitimate son, Gervaska, a friend of our father and cousin Natalia; they learned that Aunt Tonya, who lived in one of the old courtyard huts near the impoverished Sukhodol estate and enthusiastically played the ecosaise piano on the humming and ringing piano from old age, had long ago gone crazy - from unhappy love; We found out that Natalya was also going crazy, that as a girl she fell in love with her late uncle Pyotr Petrovich for the rest of her life, and he sent her into exile, to the Soshki farm... Our passionate dreams about Sukhodol were understandable. For us, Sukhodol was only a poetic monument of the past. And for Natalia? After all, it was she who, as if answering some thought of her own, once said with great bitterness:

- Well! In Sukhodol they sat down at the table with the Tatars! It’s even scary to remember.

– That is, with the arapniks? – we asked.

“Yes, it’s all one, sir,” she said.

- What for?

- And in case of a quarrel, sir.

– Did everyone quarrel in Sukhodol?

- Boron God! Not a day passed without war! They were all hot – pure gunpowder.

We were thrilled at her words and looked at each other enthusiastically: for a long time we then imagined a huge garden, a huge estate, a house with oak log walls under a heavy and black thatched roof - and lunch in the hall of this house: everyone is sitting at the table, everyone is eating, Throwing bones on the floor, the hunting dogs look askance at each other - and each has a black arapine on his knees; We dreamed of that golden time when we would grow up and also dine with arapniks on our knees. But we understood well that it was not Natalya who brought joy to these arapniks. And yet she left Lunev for Sukhodol, to the source of her dark memories. She had neither her own corner nor close relatives there; and she now served in Sukhodol no longer to her former mistress, not to Aunt Tonya, but to the widow of the late Pyotr Petrovich, Claudia Markovna. Yes, Natalya could not live without this estate.

“What to do, sir: habit,” she said modestly. “Where there is a needle, there is apparently a thread.” Where he was born, he was good enough...

And she was not the only one who suffered from attachment to Sukhodol. God, what passionate lovers of memories, what ardent adherents of Sukhodol were all the other Sukhodolians!

Aunt Tonya lived in poverty in a hut. Sukhodol deprived her of happiness, reason, and human appearance. But she never even allowed the thought, despite all our father’s persuasion, to leave her native nest and settle in Lunev:

- Yes, it’s better to hit a stone in the mountain!

The father was a carefree man; for him, it seemed, there were no attachments. But deep sadness was heard in his stories about Sukhodol. A long time ago he moved from Sukhodol to Lunevo, the field estate of our grandmother Olga Kirillovna. But he complained almost until his death:

- Alone, only Khrushchev remains in the world now. And even that one is not in Sukhodol!

True, it often happened that, following such words, he began to think, looking out the windows, into the field, and suddenly smiled mockingly, taking the guitar off the wall.

- And Sukhodol is good, to hell with him! - he added with the same sincerity with which he had spoken a minute before.

But he also had a Sukhodol soul, a soul over which the power of memories is so immeasurably great, the power of the steppe, its inert way of life, that ancient family life that united the village, the servants, and the house in Sukhodol. True, we, the Khrushchevs, are pillars, included in the sixth book, and among our legendary ancestors there were many noble people of centuries-old Lithuanian blood and Tatar princes. But the blood of the Khrushchevs has been mixed with the blood of the servants and the village since time immemorial. Who gave life to Pyotr Kirillich? Legends say different things about this. Who was the parent of Gervaska, his killer? From an early age we heard that Pyotr Kirillich. Where did such a sharp dissimilarity in the characters of the father and uncle come from? They also say different things about this. His father’s foster sister was Natalya, and he traded crosses with Gervaska... It’s long, long ago, time for Khrushchev to consider his kin to his servants and the village!

My sister and I lived for a long time in an attraction to Sukhodol, in the seduction of his old times. The household, the village and the house in Sukhodol constituted one family. Our ancestors still ruled this family. But this can be felt for a long time in the offspring. The life of a family, clan, clan is deep, knotty, mysterious, and often scary. But it is strong in its dark depth and also in its legends and past. Sukhodol is no richer in written and other monuments than any ulus in the Bashkir steppe. In Rus' they are replaced by legend. And legend and song are poison for the Slavic soul! Our former servants, passionate lazy people, dreamers - where could they unwind their souls, if not in our house? Our father remained the only representative of the Sukhodolsk gentlemen. And the first language we spoke was Sukhodolsky. The first stories, the first songs that touched us are also Sukhodolsky’s, Natalya’s, and father’s. And could anyone sing like his father, a student of the servants, - with such carefree sadness, with such gentle reproach, with such weak-willed sincerity about “his faithful, mannered lady”? Could anyone tell the story like Natalya? And who was dearer to us than the Sukhodol men?

Feuds, quarrels - this is what the Khrushchevs, like any family that has lived closely and closely together for a long time, have been famous for since time immemorial. And during our childhood there was such a quarrel between Sukhodol and Lunev that my father’s foot did not set foot for almost ten years. native threshold. We didn’t see Sukhodol that way when we were children: we were there only once, and then only on our way to Zadonsk. But dreams are sometimes stronger than reality. And we vaguely but indelibly remembered a long summer day, some wavy fields and a dead high road, which charmed us with its spaciousness and here and there surviving hollow willows; we remembered a beehive on one of these branches, which had moved far away from the road into the grain - a beehive left to the will of God, in the fields, when the road had stalled; we remembered the wide turn under the sloping road, the huge bare pasture on which the poor chicken huts looked, and the yellowness of the rocky ravines behind the huts, the whiteness of the pebbles and rubble along their bottoms... The first event that horrified us was also from Sukhodolsk: the murder of grandfather Gervaska. And, listening to the stories about this murder, we endlessly dreamed of these yellow ravines going somewhere: it all seemed that Gervaska was running along them, having done his terrible deed and “sank like a key to the bottom of the sea.”

II

We happened to get to the estate that gave birth to Natalya’s soul, which ruled her entire life, to the estate about which we had heard so much, already in late adolescence.

I remember it like it was yesterday. A downpour broke out with deafening thunderclaps and dazzlingly fast, fiery snakes of lightning as we approached Sukhodol in the evening. A black-purple cloud fell heavily to the north-west and majestically occupied half the sky opposite. The plain of grain under its huge background was flat, clear and deathly pale green; the fine wet grass on the high road was bright and unusually fresh. Wet horses, as if they had immediately lost weight, splashed, their horseshoes shining, through the blue mud, the tarantass rustled damply... And suddenly, at the very turn to Sukhodol, we saw in the tall wet rusty a tall and strange figure in a robe and a shlyk, the figure of either an old man or an old woman beating a piebald cow with a twig. As we approached, the twig began to work harder, and the cow clumsily, wagging its tail, ran out onto the road. And the old woman, shouting something, headed towards the tarantass and, approaching, stretched her pale face towards us. Looking with fear into the black crazy eyes, feeling the touch of a sharp cold nose and the strong smell of the hut, we kissed the woman who came up. Isn't this Baba Yaga herself? But a tall shlyk made of some kind of dirty rag stuck out on Baba Yaga’s head, and on her naked body she was wearing a torn, waist-deep, wet robe that did not cover her skinny breasts. And she screamed as if we were deaf, as if with the goal of starting a furious battle. And by the scream we realized: it was Aunt Tonya.

Claudia Markovna, fat, small, with a gray beard, with unusually lively eyes, who was sitting at the open window in a house with two large porches, knitting a thread sock and, raising her glasses on her forehead, looked at the pasture, also screamed, but cheerfully, with institutional enthusiasm. merged with the yard. Natalya, who was standing on the right porch, bowed low and with a quiet smile - small, tanned, wearing bast shoes, a red woolen skirt and a gray shirt with a wide neckline around a dark, wrinkled neck. Looking at that neck, at the thin collarbones, at the tired, sad eyes, I remember thinking: it was she who grew up with our father - a long time ago, but right here, where from my grandfather’s oak house, which burned many times, this one remained, nondescript, from the garden - bushes and a few old birches and poplars, from the services and people - a hut, a barn, a clay barn and a glacier overgrown with wormwood and beetroot... There was a smell of a samovar, questions started pouring in; Crystal vases for jam, golden spoons thinned to the size of a maple leaf, and sugar candies, saved for guests, began to appear from the hundred-year-old hill. And while the conversation was heating up, intensely friendly after a long quarrel, we went to wander through the darkening rooms, looking for a balcony, an exit to the garden.

Everything was black from time, simple, rough in these empty, low rooms, which retained the same layout as in the time of grandfather, cut down from the remains of the very ones in which he lived. In the corner of the footman's room there was a large blackened image of St. Mercury of Smolensk, the one whose iron sandals and helmet are kept on the salt in the ancient cathedral of Smolensk. We heard: Mercury was a noble man, called to salvation from the Tatars of the Smolensk region by the voice of the icon of the Mother of God Hodegetria the Guide. Having defeated the Tatars, the saint fell asleep and was beheaded by his enemies. Then, taking his head in his hands, he came to the city gates in order to tell what had happened... And it was creepy to look at the Suzdal image of a headless man, holding in one hand a deathly bluish head in a helmet, and in the other an icon of the Guide - at this, like they said, the treasured image of the grandfather, which survived several terrible fires, was split in the fire, thickly bound in silver and kept on the reverse side of its genealogy of the Khrushchevs, written under the titles. Exactly in harmony with it, heavy iron bolts both at the top and bottom hung on the heavy halves of the doors. The floorboards in the hall were excessively wide, dark and slippery, the windows were small, with lifting frames. We walked through the hall, a smaller double of the one where the Khrushchevs sat down at the table with the Tatar women, into the living room. Here, opposite the doors to the balcony, there once stood a piano, played by Aunt Tonya, who was in love with officer Voitkevich, Pyotr Petrovich’s comrade. And then there were open doors to the sofa room, to the coal room, where grandfather’s chambers had once been...

“Please have tea, sir,” a quiet voice called out to us.

It was she, a participant and witness of this whole life, its main storyteller, Natalya. And behind her, looking carefully with crazy eyes, bending slightly, ceremoniously sliding along the dark smooth floor, her mistress moved. She had not taken off her hat, but instead of a robe she was now wearing an old-fashioned barge dress, and a faded golden silk shawl was draped over her shoulders.

– Oh tes-vous, mes enfants? 1
Where are you, my children? (French).

III

Just as in Natalya, in her peasant simplicity, in all her beautiful and pitiful soul generated by Sukhodol, there was charm in the ruined Sukhodol estate.

“Sweet Jesus, have mercy on me,” she whispered, sighing.

Flies buzzed sleepily and displeasedly along the ceiling of the hot, dark hut. Every night something woke them up. Then the cow scratched its side against the wall of the hut; then the rat ran across the abruptly ringing keys of the piano and, breaking loose, fell with a crash into the shards that the aunt carefully put in the corner; then an old black cat with green eyes would return home late from somewhere and lazily ask to go into the hut; or this owl flew in, prophesying trouble with his cries. And Auntie, overcoming her drowsiness, swatting away the flies that crawled into her eyes in the darkness, got up, rummaged around the benches, slammed the door - and, going out on the threshold, randomly launched a rolling pin up into the starry sky. The eagle owl, with a rustling sound, brushing the straw with its wings, fell off the roof and fell low into the darkness. It almost touched the ground, smoothly reached the barn and, soaring, sat on its ridge. And his crying was heard again in the estate. He sat as if remembering something, and suddenly let out a cry of amazement; fell silent - and suddenly began to hoot hysterically, laugh and squeal; fell silent again - and burst into groans, sobs, sobs... And the nights, dark, warm, with purple clouds, were calm, calm. He ran sleepily and the babble of sleepy poplars flowed. The lightning flashed cautiously over the dark Trosha forest - and the warm, dry smell of oak. Near the forest, above the plains of oats, in a clearing in the sky among the clouds, Scorpio burned like a silver triangle, a grave cabbage...

We returned to the estate late. Having inhaled the dew, the freshness of the steppe, wild flowers and herbs, we carefully climbed onto the porch and entered the dark hallway. And they often found Natalya praying in front of the image of Mercury. Barefoot, small, with her hands clasped, she stood in front of him, whispered something, crossed herself, bowed low to him, invisible in the darkness - and all this was so simple, as if she were talking with someone close, also simple, kind, merciful.

- Natalia? – we called out quietly.

- I'm with? – she responded quietly and simply, interrupting the prayer.

- Why are you still not sleeping?

- Maybe we’ll still get some sleep in the grave...

We sat on the bunk, opened the window; she stood with her hands clasped. Lightning flashes mysteriously flashed, illuminating the dark rooms; The quail was beating somewhere far away in the dewy steppe. The duck that woke up on the pond quacked in warning and alarm...

- Were you walking, sir?

- We were walking.

- Well, it’s a young thing... We used to spend all nights walking... One dawn will drive us out, another will drive us away...

– Was life good before?

- Good with…

And there was a long silence.

- Why is this owl screaming, nanny? - said the sister.

- He’s not shouting at the court, sir, there’s no abyss for him. At least hit him with a gun. And it’s downright creepy, I keep thinking: either it’s going to cause some kind of trouble? And everything scares the young lady. But she’s shy to death!

- How did she get sick?

- Yes, it’s known, sir: all the tears, tears, melancholy... Then they started to pray... Yes, everything is more and more vicious with us, with the girls, and more and more angry with the brothers...

And, remembering the arapniks, we asked:

- Not amicably, so they lived?

- How friendly! And especially after they got sick, how their grandfather died, how the young gentlemen came into power and the deceased Pyotr Petrovich got married. They were all hot – pure gunpowder!

– Do you often flog servants?

“We didn’t have that in our establishment, sir.” How wrong I was! And all that happened was that Pyotr Petrovich ordered me to fool my head with sheep’s scissors, put on a shabby shirt and send me to the farm...

- What did you do wrong?

But the answer was not always direct and quick. Natalya sometimes told stories with amazing directness and thoroughness; but sometimes she stammered and thought about something; then she sighed lightly, and from her voice, without seeing her face in the darkness, we understood that she was smiling sadly:

- Yes, that’s what I did wrong... I already told you... I was young and stupid, sir. “The nightingale sang for sin, for misfortune in the garden...” And, you know, my business was a girl’s...

The sister asked her tenderly:

- Just tell me, nanny, these poems to the end.

And Natalya was embarrassed.

- This is not poetry, sir, but a song... Yes, I don’t even remember it now.

- It's not true, it's not true!

- Well, if you please...

And she ended quickly:

- “As for sin, for misfortune...” That is: “For sin, for misfortune, the nightingale sang in the garden - a languid song... The fool did not let me sleep - in the dark night...”

Overcoming herself, the sister asked:

– Were you very much in love with your uncle?

And Natalya stupidly and briefly whispered:

- Very With.

– Do you always remember him in prayer?

- Always, sir.

“They say you fainted when they were taking you to Soshki?”

- In a faint, sir. We, the servants, were terribly tender... ready for reprisals... we can’t compare with the gray one-yard man! As Yevsey Bodulya took me, I was stupefied with grief and fear... In the city I almost suffocated from being unaccustomed to it. And when we left for the steppe, I felt so tender and pitiful! An officer who looked like them rushed towards me - I screamed, and dead! And when I came to my senses, I lay there in the cart and thought: I feel good now, exactly in the kingdom of heaven!

- Was he strict?

- God forbid!

- Well, was Aunt the most wayward of all?

- One, sir, one, sir. I’m reporting to you: they were even taken to the saint. We suffered through passion with them! They should have lived and lived as they should now, but they became proud and moved... How Voitkevich loved them! Well, there you go!

- Well, what about grandfather?

- What about those? They were weak in mind. And, of course, it happened to them too. Everyone at that time was passionate... But the previous gentlemen did not disdain our brother. Sometimes, your dad would punish Gervaska at lunchtime - that’s what should have happened! - and in the evening, lo and behold, they’re already fattening on the mongrels, jockeying with him on balalaikas...

- Tell me, was he good, Voitkevich?

Natalya was thoughtful.

- No, sir, I don’t want to lie: I was like a Kalmyk. And serious, persistent. I read all the poems to her, kept scaring her: they say, I’ll die and come for you...

- After all, grandfather went crazy with love?

- Those after your grandmother. This is a different matter, madam. And our house was gloomy - gloomy, God bless him. If you please listen to my stupid words...

And in a leisurely whisper Natalya began a long, long story...

A downpour erupted with deafening thunderclaps.

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Sukhodol

Ivan Bunin Sukhodol

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Ivan Bunin
Sukhodol