I remember a fruitful year. Ivan Bunin - Antonov apples
The teacher pays attention to Ivan Bunin’s story “Antonov Apples,” in which the writer describes the entire life of the Russian middle and upper classes in the countryside. In the story “Antonov Apples,” the plot as a whole represents a description of the main character’s memories, and they are different in each of the four chapters of the text. Thus, the first part describes the trade of the townspeople with the famous Antonov apples in August, the second - autumn, the noble house where the main character and his relatives lived. The third describes hunting, as well as the onset of winter. The fourth describes the November day of small-scale people.
At the end of the lesson, the teacher emphasizes that Ivan Bunin’s story “Antonov Apples” is an expression of deep and poetic love for his country.
Topic: Russian literature of the late XIX – early XX centuries.
Lesson:Ivan Bunin. "Antonov Apples", "Village"
A characteristic feature of I. Bunin’s early prose work is the presence of a lyrical plot, in which it is not events that are important, but impressions, associations, and a special elegiac mood. It is known that I.A. Bunin began his career in literature as a poet and, as a rule, did not clearly distinguish between poetic and prosaic creativity; he often used in prose individual images taken from his own lyrics. In this regard, his work clearly reflects such a characteristic phenomenon of 20th-century literature as poetry.
The story “Antonov Apples” as a whole can be considered as a prose poem. A brief and incredibly poetic time is depicted - Indian summer, when elegiac reflections naturally form in the soul. Behind the detailed landscape sketch one can discern the poetic soul of the author, a subtle, educated man who deeply loves the life of his native nature. Folk wisdom is close to him, as he often turns to signs: “Autumn and winter live well if the water is calm and there is rain on Lawrence.”
The motive of death enhances the experiences of the lyrical hero. However, the wonderful moment remains in the memory.
Beauty and death, love and separation - these are eternal themes, personal and enlightened expression in poetry.
The genre has been defined in various ways, and the running theme is the passage of time.
The story begins and ends with an ellipsis. This means that nothing begins and nothing ends in it. Human life is finite, but life is infinite.
The story is divided into 4 fragments, each of them has its own theme and intonation.
Few people can know and love nature as well as Bunin can. Thanks to this love, the poet looks vigilantly and far, and his colorful and auditory impressions are rich. His world is primarily a world of visual and auditory impressions and experiences associated with them.
Treasured alleys of noble nests. These words from K. Balmont’s poem “In Memory of Turgenev” perfectly convey the mood of the story “Antonov Apples.” Apparently, it is no coincidence that on the pages of one of his first stories, the very date of creation of which is extremely symbolic, I.A. Bunin recreates the world of a Russian estate. It is in it, according to the writer, that the past and the present are united, the history of the culture of the golden age and its fate at the turn of the century, the family traditions of the noble family and individual human life. Sadness about the noble nests fading into the past is the leitmotif not only of this story, but also of numerous poems, such as “The high white hall, where the black piano is...”, “Into the living room through the garden and dusty curtains...”, “On a quiet night, the late moon came out... " However, the leitmotif of decline and destruction is overcome in them “not by the theme of liberation from the past, but on the contrary, by the poeticization of this past, living in the memory of culture... Bunin’s poem about the estate is characterized by picturesqueness and at the same time inspired emotionality, sublimity and poetic feeling. The estate becomes for the lyrical hero an integral part of his individual life and at the same time a symbol of the homeland, the roots of the family” (L. Ershov).
The first thing you notice when reading a story is the absence of a plot in the usual sense, i.e. lack of event dynamics. The very first words of the work “...I remember an early fine autumn” immerse us in the world of the hero’s memories, and the plot begins to develop as a chain of sensations associated with them. The smell of Antonov apples, which awakens a variety of associations in the narrator’s soul. The smells change - life itself changes, but the change in its way of life is conveyed by the writer as a change in the hero’s personal feelings, a change in his worldview. The whole earth is oozing with fruits. But we understand that this is universal happiness. This is a child's perception of happiness.
Let us pay attention to the pictures of autumn given in different chapters through the perception of the hero.
In the first chapter we are talking about a strong emotion: “In the dark, in the depths of the garden, there is a fabulous picture: as if in a corner of hell, a hut is burning with a crimson flame, surrounded by darkness, and someone’s black silhouettes, as if carved from ebony wood, are moving around the fire, between as giant shadows from them walk across the apple trees.” How good it is to live in the world!
In the second chapter, the tone is already consistent, we are talking about the people who convey the way of life, the epic mood: “Almost all the small foliage has flown off the coastal vines, and the branches are visible in the turquoise sky. The water under the lozins became clear, icy and as if heavy... When you used to drive through the village on a sunny morning, you kept thinking about how good it is to mow, thresh, sleep on the threshing floor in brooms, and on a holiday to rise with the sun...”
Rice. 2. Illustration for the story “Antonov Apples” by I. A. Bunin ()
Time goes by in circles as if nothing is happening. The author conveys in his own words the thoughts of the characters.
Bunin formulates the idea of the epic. Thoughts about the village. The idyllic intonation is affirmed, but the author, for contrast, mentions serfdom.
The third chapter deals with the heyday of local culture. Late fall. Pictures of nature “The wind tore and tore the trees for days on end, the rains watered them from morning to night... the wind did not let up. It disturbed the garden, tore up the stream of human smoke continuously flowing from the chimney, and again brought up the ominous strands of ash clouds. They ran low and fast - and soon, like smoke, they clouded the sun. Its shine faded, the window into the blue sky closed, and the garden became deserted and boring, and rain began to fall more and more often...”
And in the fourth chapter: “The days are bluish, cloudy... All day long I wander through the empty plains...” Lonely wandering through the already winter forest. Quiet sadness.
The description of autumn is conveyed by the narrator through its flower and sound perception. The autumn landscape changes from chapter to chapter: the colors fade, the sunlight becomes less. Essentially, the story describes the autumn of not one year, but several, and this is constantly emphasized in the text: “I remember a harvest year”; “These were so recent, and yet it seems that almost a whole century has passed since then.”
Pictures - memories appear in the mind of the narrator and create the illusion of action. However, the narrator himself seems to be in different age guises: from chapter to chapter he seems to become older and looks at the world either through the eyes of a child, a teenager and a young man, or even through the eyes of a person who has crossed adulthood. But time seems to have no power over him, and it flows in the story in a very strange way. On the one hand, it seems to be moving forward, but in the memories the narrator always turns back. All events occurring in the past are perceived and experienced by him as momentary, developing before his eyes. This relativity of time is one of the features of Bunin's traits.
I.A. Bunin is incredibly fond of national color. With what care, for example, he describes the festive spirit of the garden fair. His creation of figures of people from the people amazes with a high degree of individualization. Just look at one important thing, like a Kholmogory cow, a young elder, or a burry, nimble half-idiot playing the Tula harmonica.
To recreate in detail the atmosphere of early fine autumn in the apple orchard I.A. Bunin widely uses a whole series of artistic definitions: “I remember an early, fresh, quiet morning... I remember a large, all golden, dried up and thinning garden, I remember maple alleys, the subtle aroma of fallen leaves...” In order to more fully and clearly reflect the surrounding atmosphere, convey every sound (the creaking of carts, the clucking of blackbirds, the crackle of apples being eaten by men) and aroma (the smell of Antonov apples, honey and autumn freshness).
The smell of apples is a recurring detail in the story. I.A. Bunin describes a garden with Antonov apples at different times of the day. At the same time, the evening landscape turns out to be no poorer than the morning one. It is decorated with the diamond constellation Stozhar, the Milky Way, whitening overhead, and shooting stars.
Local libraries preserve the memory of ancestors.
The central theme of the story is the theme of the ruin of noble nests. The author writes with pain that the smell of Antonov apples is disappearing, and the way of life that has developed over centuries is falling apart. Admiring the past and the passing brings an elegiac tone to the work. Bunin emphasizes in certain details the social aspect of relations between people. This is evidenced by the vocabulary (“philistine”, “barchuk”). Despite the elegiac tone, the story also contains optimistic notes. “How cold, dewy and how good it is to live in the world!” - emphasizes I.A. Bunin. The story reveals the idealization of the image of the people characteristic of the writer. It is especially close to the author on holidays, when everyone is tidy and happy. “The old men and women lived in Vyselki for a very long time - the first sign of a rich village - and they were all tall, big and white, like a harrier. All you heard was: “Yes,” Agafya waved off her eighty-three year old!” - this is how I.A conveys through dialogues. Bunin his admiration for the way of simple village life. The author poetizes everyday values: work on the land, a clean shirt and lunch with hot lamb on wooden plates.
Social and class differences do not escape the author's attention either. It is no coincidence that old Pankrat stands stretched out in front of the master, smiling guiltily and meekly. It is in this work that I.A. expresses. Bunin had an important idea for him that the structure of the average noble life was close to that of the peasants. The author-narrator directly admits that he did not know or see serfdom, but felt it, remembering how former servants bowed to their masters.
The social aspect is also emphasized in the interior of the house. Footman's room, people's room, hall, living room - all these names indicate the author's understanding of class contradictions in society. However, at the same time, the story also contains admiration for the refined life of the nobility. The writer, for example, emphasizes arctocratically beautiful heads in ancient hairstyles, from portraits lowering their long eyelashes onto sad and tender eyes.
Thus, the story of I.A. Bunin’s “Antonov Apples” is dear to the reader because it embodies the beauty of native nature, pictures of Russian life and teaches to love Russia as much as the Russian writer, stunning with the depth of lyrical expression of patriotic experience, loved it.
Additionally
The idea for the story “Village” arose from Bunin’s thoughts about the events of 1905 and how it affected life in the Russian village. This led to the fact that the lyrical and master of subtle and tender poetry, Bunin, had to depict what was happening in the village in a strict style and in a purely objective manner.
Only in this way could he reach the callous and already seemingly unbeatable hearts of people who ignored what thousands of disadvantaged people were experiencing. At the same time, Bunin not only paints a harsh picture of reality, he reveals the personalities of the people who were the key figures in this picture.
Therefore, the story “The Village” is considered, first of all, a psychological novel, since Bunin pays a lot of attention to deep portraits of people, their feelings, experiences, thoughts.
In portraying this most skillfully, Bunin is helped by his artistic expressiveness, which is also contained in his rustic lyrics dedicated to the beauty of nature and the amazing sensations that it evokes in humans.
The life and daily existence of the peasants, carefully described by Bunin, and the images of people shown in detail testify to the main idea of the story.
The writer’s goal is not just to show reality realistically, but also to lead the reader to a logical thought about the future of the Russian people and, in particular, about the fate of the Russian village and those people who devote their whole lives to it.
And it is here that the lyricism so close to Bunin is manifested; it sounds softly in the tone of the entire narrative, in those amazing pictures of nature to which the writer pays so much attention, in the bright and complex feelings of the characters and their heartfelt words.
The two main characters of the story - the Krasov brothers - represent carefully thought-out images, the opposite of which helps the writer to fully paint a picture of reality.
Kuzma, a self-taught poet, is clearly close to Bunin’s personality; in his actions and thoughts one can feel the writer’s personal attitude to what is happening and his assessment.
Using the example of Kuzma, the author shows the features of the new national psyche; Kuzma himself thinks that the Russian people are lazy and wild, that the reasons for such a cruel life of the peasants lie not only in difficult circumstances, but also in their own ideas and psychology.
In contrast to the self-taught poet, Bunin makes the image of his brother Tikhon selfish and calculating. Gradually, he increases his capital, and on his path to prosperity and power, he stops at nothing.
But despite the path he has chosen, he still feels an emptiness and despair that is directly related to the future of his homeland, which paints pictures of an even more destructive revolution.
Using the example of the main and secondary characters, Bunin reveals to the readers the acute social contradictions in which Russian reality lies.
Those who are village “rebels” are stupid and empty people who grew up in lack of culture and rudeness, and their protest is just a ridiculous attempt to change something. But they are unable to change their own consciousness and psychology, the core of which still remains inertia and hopelessness.
The psychological story “The Village” by Ivan Alekseevich Bunin is recognized as one of the most outstanding and truthful works of Russian literature of the 20th century.
It is in this story that the writer begins to reveal his talent as a realistic prose writer, while the variety of his artistic techniques for depicting the simple peasant life of Russia closely resonates with the themes and artistic expressiveness of his lyrics.
The main “Village” is a sober, merciless realism in its truth, with the help of which Bunin reveals to his readers a full-fledged picture of peasant life.
Bibliography
1. Chalmaev V.A., Zinin S.A. Russian literature of the twentieth century.: Textbook for grade 11: In 2 hours - 5th ed. – M.: LLC 2TID “Russian Word - RS”, 2008.
2. Agenosov V.V. . Russian literature of the 20th century. Methodical manual M. “Bustard”, 2002
3. Russian literature of the 20th century. Textbook for applicants to universities M. academic-scientific. Center "Moscow Lyceum", 1995.
4. Wiktionary.
additional literature
Publications by I. Bunin: Collection. Op. in 9 vols. M., 1965–1967; Collection Op. in 6 vols. M., 1996–1997; Literature “Russian writers in Moscow”. Collection. Reprint. Comp. L. P. Bykovtseva. M., 1977, 860s “Russian writers. Bio-bibliographic dictionary.” M., 1990
Essays on Russian literature of the late 19th – early 20th centuries. State Publishing House of Fiction. M., 1952
I. A. Bunin. “Stories”. M., 1955 I. A. Bunin. “Antonov apples. Novels and stories” Children's literature. M., 1981 “History of Russian literature of the late 19th – early 20th centuries” Higher school. M., 1984
Audiobook « Antonov apples" ().
“...I remember an early fine autumn. August was with warm rains... Then, in the Indian summer, a lot of cobwebs settled in the fields... I remember an early, fresh, quiet morning... I remember a large, all golden, dried up and thinning garden, I remember maple alleys, the subtle aroma of fallen leaves and - the smell of Antonov apples, the smell of honey and autumn freshness. The air is so clean, as if there is none at all... And the cool silence of the morning is disturbed only by the well-fed cackling of blackbirds on the coral rowan trees in the thicket of the garden, voices and the booming sound of apples being poured into measures and tubs. In the thinned garden one can see the road to a large hut, strewn with straw.” Bourgeois gardeners live here and have rented the garden. “On holidays, there is a whole fair near the hut, and red headdresses constantly flash behind the trees.” Everyone comes for apples. Boys in white fluffy shirts and short porticoes, with white open heads, come up. They walk in twos and threes, shuffling their bare feet, and glance sideways at the shaggy shepherd dog tied to an apple tree. There are many buyers, trade is brisk, and the consumptive tradesman in a long frock coat and red boots is cheerful.
By nightfall the weather becomes very cold and dewy. It's getting dark. And here’s another smell: there’s a fire in the garden, and there’s a strong wafting of fragrant smoke from cherry branches.
“"Vigorous Antonovka - for a fun year." Village affairs are good if the Antonovka crop is cropped: that means the grain crop is cropped... I remember a fruitful year.
At early dawn, when the roosters were still crowing and the huts were smoking black, you would open the window into a cool garden filled with a lilac fog, through which the morning sun shines brightly here and there... and you would run to wash your face at the pond. Almost all of the small foliage has flown off the coastal vines, and the branches are visible in the turquoise sky. The water under the vines became clear, icy and seemed heavy.”
“I didn’t know or see serfdom, but I remember feeling it at Aunt Anna Gerasimovna’s. You drive into the yard and immediately feel that it is still quite alive here. The estate is small... What stands out in size, or better yet, in length, is only the blackened human one, from which the last Mohicans of the courtyard class peek out - some decrepit old men and women, a decrepit retired cook, looking like Don Quixote. When you drive into the yard, they all pull themselves up and bow low and low...
You will enter the house and first of all you will hear the smell of apples, and then others: old mahogany furniture, dried linden blossoms, which have been lying on the windows since June... In all the rooms - in the footman's room, in the hall, in the living room - it is cool and gloomy: this is because the house is surrounded by a garden, and the upper glass of the windows is colored: blue and purple. Everywhere there is silence and cleanliness, although it seems that the chairs, tables with inlays and mirrors in narrow and twisted gold frames have never been moved. And then a cough is heard: the aunt comes out. It is small, but, like everything around, it is durable. She has a large Persian shawl draped over her shoulders...”
“Since the end of September, our gardens and threshing floor have been empty, the weather, as usual, has changed dramatically. The wind tore and tore the trees for days on end, and the rains watered them from morning to night. Sometimes in the evening, between the gloomy low clouds, the flickering golden light of the low sun made its way in the west; the air became clean and clear, and the sunlight sparkled dazzlingly between the foliage, between the branches, which moved like a living net and were agitated by the wind. The liquid blue sky shone coldly and brightly in the north above the heavy lead clouds, and from behind these clouds the ridges of snowy mountains-clouds slowly floated out... A long, anxious night was coming... From such a scolding, the garden emerged almost completely naked, covered with wet leaves and somehow quiet, resigned. But how beautiful it was when clear weather came again, clear and cold days of early October, the farewell holiday of autumn! The preserved foliage will hang on the trees until the first winter. The black garden will shine through the cold turquoise sky and dutifully wait for winter, warming itself in the sunshine.”
“When I happened to oversleep the hunt, the rest was especially pleasant. You wake up and lie in bed for a long time... Slowly get dressed, wander around the garden, find in the wet leaves an accidentally forgotten cold and wet apple, and for some reason it seems unusually tasty, not at all like the others. Then you’ll get down to reading books—grandfather’s books in thick leather bindings, with gold stars on morocco spines. These books, similar to church breviaries, smell wonderful with their yellowed, thick, rough paper! Some kind of pleasant sourish mold, old perfume... The notes in their margins are also good, large and with round soft strokes made with a quill pen... And you will involuntarily be carried away by the book itself. This is “The Noble Philosopher”... a story about how “a noble philosopher, having the time and the ability to reason about what the human mind can ascend to, once received the desire to compose a plan of light in the vast area of his village...”
“The smell of Antonov apples disappears from the landowners’ estates. These days were so recent, and yet it seems to me that almost a whole century has passed since then. The old people in Vyselki died, Anna Gerasimovna died, Arseniy Semenych shot himself... The kingdom of the small estates, impoverished to the point of beggary, is coming. But this miserable small-scale life is also good! So I see myself again in the village, deep in the ass. The days are bluish and cloudy. In the morning I get into the saddle and with one dog, a gun and a horn, I ride off into the field. The wind rings and hums in the barrel of a gun, the wind blows strongly towards, sometimes with dry snow. All day long I wander through the empty plains... Hungry and frozen, I return to the estate at dusk, and my soul becomes so warm and joyful when the lights of the Settlement flash and the smell of smoke and housing draws me out of the estate... Sometimes someone will come by a small-scale neighbor and will take me away for a long time... The life of a small-scale neighbor is good too!”
...I remember an early fine autumn. August was full of warm rains, as if falling on purpose for sowing, with rains right at the right time, in the middle of the month, around the feast of St. Lawrence. And “autumn and winter live well if the water is calm and there is rain on Laurentia.” Then, in the Indian summer, a lot of cobwebs settled in the fields. This is also a good sign: “There is a lot of shade in the Indian summer - autumn is vigorous”... I remember an early, fresh, quiet morning... I remember a large, all golden, dried up and thinning garden, I remember maple alleys, the subtle aroma of fallen leaves and - the smell Antonov apples, the smell of honey and autumn freshness. The air is so clean, it’s as if there is no air at all; voices and the creaking of carts can be heard throughout the garden. These Tarkhans, bourgeois gardeners, hired men and poured apples in order to send them to the city at night - certainly on a night when it is so nice to lie on a cart, look into the starry sky, smell tar in the fresh air and listen to how carefully it creaks in the dark a long convoy along the high road. The man pouring the apples eats them with a juicy crackle one after another, but such is the establishment - the tradesman will never cut it off, but will also say: - Go ahead, eat your fill, there’s nothing to do! Everyone drinks honey while pouring. And the cool silence of the morning is disturbed only by the well-fed cackling of blackbirds on the coral rowan trees in the thicket of the garden, voices and the booming sound of apples being poured into measures and tubs. In the thinned garden one can see far away the road to the large hut, strewn with straw, and the hut itself, near which the townspeople acquired an entire household over the summer. Everywhere there is a strong smell of apples, especially here. There are beds in the hut, there is a single-barreled gun, a green samovar, and dishes in the corner. Near the hut there are mats, boxes, all sorts of tattered belongings, and an earthen stove has been dug. At noon, a magnificent kulesh with lard is cooked on it, in the evening the samovar is heated, and a long strip of bluish smoke spreads across the garden, between the trees. On holidays, there is a whole fair near the hut, and red headdresses constantly flash behind the trees. There is a crowd of lively single-yard girls in sundresses that smell strongly of paint, the “lords” come in their beautiful and rough, savage costumes, a young elder woman, pregnant, with a wide, sleepy face and as important as a Kholmogory cow. She has “horns” on her head - the braids are placed on the sides of the crown and covered with several scarves, so that the head seems huge; the legs, in ankle boots with horseshoes, stand stupidly and firmly; the sleeveless vest is velvet, the curtain is long, and the poneva is black and purple with brick-colored stripes and lined at the hem with a wide gold “prose”... - Household butterfly! - the tradesman says about her, shaking his head. — These are now being translated... And the boys in fancy white shirts and short porticoes, with white open heads, all come up. They walk in twos and threes, shuffling their bare feet, and glance sideways at the shaggy shepherd dog tied to an apple tree. Of course, only one buys, because the purchases are only for a penny or an egg, but there are many buyers, trade is brisk, and the consumptive tradesman in a long frock coat and red boots is cheerful. Together with his brother, a burry, nimble half-idiot who lives with him “out of mercy,” he trades in jokes, jokes and even sometimes “touches” the Tula harmonica. And until the evening there is a crowd of people in the garden, you can hear laughter and talking around the hut, and sometimes the clatter of dancing... By nightfall the weather becomes very cold and dewy. Having inhaled the rye aroma of new straw and chaff on the threshing floor, you cheerfully walk home for dinner past the garden rampart. Voices in the village or the creaking of gates can be heard unusually clearly in the chilly dawn. It's getting dark. And here’s another smell: there’s a fire in the garden, and there’s a strong wafting of fragrant smoke from cherry branches. In the darkness, in the depths of the garden, there is a fabulous picture: as if in a corner of hell, a crimson flame, surrounded by darkness, is burning near the hut, and someone’s black silhouettes, as if carved from ebony wood, are moving around the fire, while giant shadows from them walk across the apple trees . Either a black hand several arshins in size will fall across the entire tree, then two legs will clearly appear - two black pillars. And suddenly all this will slide from the apple tree - and the shadow will fall along the entire alley, from the hut to the gate itself... Late at night, when the lights in the village go out, when the diamond constellation Stozhar is already shining high in the sky, you will run into the garden again. Rustle through dry leaves like a blind man and you will reach the hut. There in the clearing it is a little lighter, and the Milky Way is white above your head. - Is it you, barchuk? - someone quietly calls out from the darkness. - I am. Are you still awake, Nikolai? - We can't sleep. And it must be too late? Look, there seems to be a passenger train coming... We listen for a long time and discern trembling in the ground, the trembling turns into noise, grows, and now, as if already just outside the garden, the noisy beat of the wheels is rapidly beating out: rumbling and knocking, the train rushes by... closer, closer, louder and angrier... And suddenly it begins to subside, stall, as if going into the ground... - Where is your gun, Nikolai? - But next to the box, sir. You throw up a single-barreled shotgun, heavy as a crowbar, and shoot straight away. The crimson flame will flash towards the sky with a deafening crack, blind for a moment and extinguish the stars, and a cheerful echo will ring out like a ring and roll across the horizon, fading far, far away in the clean and sensitive air. - Wow, great! - the tradesman will say. - Spend it, spend it, little gentleman, otherwise it’s just a disaster! Again they shook off all the gunk on the shaft... And the black sky is lined with fiery stripes of falling stars. You look for a long time into its dark blue depths, overflowing with constellations, until the earth begins to float under your feet. Then you will wake up and, hiding your hands in your sleeves, quickly run along the alley to the house... How cold, dewy and how good it is to live in the world!II
“Vigorous Antonovka - for a fun year.” Village affairs are good if the Antonovka crop is cropped: that means the grain crop is cropped... I remember a fruitful year. At early dawn, when the roosters were still crowing and the huts were smoking black, you would open the window into a cool garden filled with a lilac fog, through which the morning sun shines brightly here and there, and you couldn’t resist - you ordered to quickly saddle the horse, and you yourself ran wash at the pond. Almost all of the small foliage has flown off the coastal vines, and the branches are visible in the turquoise sky. The water under the vines became clear, icy, and seemingly heavy. It instantly drives away the laziness of the night, and, having washed and had breakfast in the common room with the workers, hot potatoes and black bread with coarse raw salt, you enjoy feeling the slippery leather of the saddle under you as you ride through Vyselki to hunt. Autumn is the time for patronal feasts, and at this time the people are tidy and happy, the appearance of the village is not at all the same as at other times. If the year is fruitful and a whole golden city rises on the threshing floors, and geese cackle loudly and sharply on the river in the morning, then it’s not bad at all in the village. In addition, our Vyselki have been famous for their “wealth” since time immemorial, since the time of our grandfather. The old men and women lived in Vyselki for a very long time - the first sign of a rich village - and they were all tall, big and white, like a harrier. All you heard was: “Yes,” Agafya waved off her eighty-three year old!” - or conversations like this: - And when will you die, Pankrat? I suppose you will be a hundred years old? - How would you like to speak, father? - How old are you, I ask! - I don’t know, sir, father. - Do you remember Platon Apollonich? “Why, sir, father,” I clearly remember. - You see now. That means you are no less than a hundred. The old man, who stands stretched out in front of the master, smiles meekly and guiltily. Well, they say, what to do - it’s my fault, it’s healed. And he probably would have prospered even more if he had not eaten too much onions in Petrovka. I remember his old woman too. Everyone used to sit on a bench, on the porch, bent over, shaking his head, gasping for breath and holding onto the bench with his hands, all thinking about something. “About her goods,” the women said, because, indeed, she had a lot of “goods” in her chests. But she doesn’t seem to hear; he looks half-blindly into the distance from under sadly raised eyebrows, shakes his head and seems to be trying to remember something. She was a big old woman, kind of dark all over. Paneva is almost from the last century, the chestnuts are like those of a deceased person, the neck is yellow and withered, the shirt with rosin joints is always white-white, “you could even put it in a coffin.” And near the porch lay a large stone: I bought it for my grave, as well as a shroud, an excellent shroud, with angels, with crosses and with a prayer printed on the edges. The courtyards in Vyselki also matched the old people: brick, built by their grandfathers. And the rich men - Savely, Ignat, Dron - had huts in two or three connections, because sharing in Vyselki was not yet fashionable. In such families they kept bees, were proud of their gray-iron-colored bull stallion, and kept their estates in order. On the threshing floors there were dark and thick hemp trees, there were barns and barns covered with hair; in the bunks and barns there were iron doors, behind which canvases, spinning wheels, new sheepskin coats, type-setting harnesses, and measures bound with copper hoops were stored. Crosses were burned on the gates and on the sleds. And I remember that sometimes it seemed extremely tempting to me to be a man. When you used to drive through the village on a sunny morning, you kept thinking about how good it would be to mow, thresh, sleep on the threshing floor in brooms, and on a holiday to rise with the sun, under the thick and musical blast from the village, wash yourself near a barrel and put on a clean pair of clothes. a shirt, the same trousers and indestructible boots with horseshoes. If, I thought, I add to this a healthy and beautiful wife in festive attire, and a trip to mass, and then dinner with my bearded father-in-law, a dinner with hot lamb on wooden plates and with rushes, with honeycomb honey and mash, then I could only wish for more impossible! Even in my memory, very recently, the lifestyle of the average nobleman had much in common with the lifestyle of a wealthy peasant in its homeliness and rural, old-world prosperity. Such, for example, was the estate of Aunt Anna Gerasimovna, who lived about twelve versts from Vyselki. By the time you get to this estate, it’s already completely impoverished. With dogs in packs you have to walk at a pace, and you don’t want to rush - it’s so much fun in an open field on a sunny and cool day! The terrain is flat, you can see far away. The sky is light and so spacious and deep. The sun sparkles from the side, and the road, rolled by carts after the rains, is oily and shines like rails. Fresh, lush green winter crops are scattered around in wide schools. A hawk will fly up from somewhere in the transparent air and freeze in one place, fluttering its sharp wings. And clearly visible telegraph poles run into the clear distance, and their wires, like silver strings, slide along the slope of the clear sky. There are falcons sitting on them - completely black icons on music paper. I didn’t know or see serfdom, but I remember feeling it at my aunt Anna Gerasimovna’s. You drive into the yard and immediately feel that it is still quite alive here. The estate is small, but all old, solid, surrounded by hundred-year-old birch and willow trees. There are a lot of outbuildings - low, but homely - and all of them are precisely made of dark oak logs under thatched roofs. The only thing that stands out in size, or better yet, in length, is the blackened human one, from which the last Mohicans of the courtyard class peek out - some decrepit old men and women, a decrepit retired cook, looking like Don Quixote. When you drive into the yard, they all pull themselves up and bow low and low. A gray-haired coachman, heading from the carriage barn to pick up a horse, takes off his hat while still at the barn and walks around the yard with his head bare. He rode as a postilion for his aunt, and now he takes her to mass - in the winter in a cart, and in the summer in a strong, iron-bound cart, like those that priests ride on. My aunt’s garden was famous for its neglect, nightingales, turtle doves and apples, and the house was famous for its roof. He stood at the head of the courtyard, right next to the garden - the branches of the linden trees hugged him - he was small and squat, but it seemed that he would not last a century - so thoroughly did he look from under his unusually high and thick thatched roof, blackened and hardened by time. Its front facade always seemed to me to be alive: as if an old face was looking out from under a huge hat with sockets of eyes - windows with mother-of-pearl glass from the rain and sun. And on the sides of these eyes there were porches - two old large porches with columns. Well-fed pigeons always sat on their pediment, while thousands of sparrows rained from roof to roof... And the guest felt comfortable in this nest under the turquoise autumn sky! You will enter the house and first of all you will hear the smell of apples, and then others: old mahogany furniture, dried linden blossoms, which have been lying on the windows since June... In all the rooms - in the servant's room, in the hall, in the living room - it is cool and gloomy: this is because the house is surrounded by a garden, and the upper glass of the windows is colored: blue and purple. Everywhere there is silence and cleanliness, although it seems that the chairs, tables with inlays and mirrors in narrow and twisted gold frames have never been moved. And then a cough is heard: the aunt comes out. It is small, but, like everything around, it is durable. She has a large Persian shawl draped over her shoulders. She will come out importantly, but affably, and now, amid endless conversations about antiquity, about inheritances, treats begin to appear: first, “duli”, apples, Antonovsky, “bel-barynya”, borovinka, “plodovitka” - and then an amazing lunch : all through and through pink boiled ham with peas, stuffed chicken, turkey, marinades and red kvass - strong and sweet-sweet... The windows to the garden are raised, and the cheerful autumn coolness blows from there.III
In recent years, one thing has supported the fading spirit of the landowners - hunting. Previously, such estates as the estate of Anna Gerasimovna were not uncommon. There were also decaying, but still living in grand style, estates with a huge estate, with a garden of twenty dessiatines. True, some of these estates have survived to this day, but there is no longer life in them... There are no troikas, no riding "Kirghiz", no hounds and greyhounds, no servants and no owner of all this - the landowner-hunter, like my late brother-in-law Arseny Semenych. Since the end of September, our gardens and threshing floors have been empty, and the weather, as usual, has changed dramatically. The wind tore and tore the trees for days on end, and the rains watered them from morning to night. Sometimes in the evening, between the gloomy low clouds, the flickering golden light of the low sun made its way in the west; the air became clean and clear, and the sunlight sparkled dazzlingly between the foliage, between the branches, which moved like a living net and were agitated by the wind. The liquid blue sky shone coldly and brightly in the north above the heavy lead clouds, and from behind these clouds ridges of snowy mountain-clouds slowly floated out. You stand at the window and think: “Maybe, God willing, the weather will clear up.” But the wind did not subside. It disturbed the garden, tore up the continuously flowing stream of human smoke from the chimney, and again drove up the ominous strands of ash clouds. They ran low and fast - and soon, like smoke, they clouded the sun. Its shine faded, the window into the blue sky closed, and the garden became deserted and boring, and the rain began to fall again... at first quietly, carefully, then more and more thickly and, finally, it turned into a downpour with storm and darkness. A long, anxious night was coming... After such a scolding, the garden emerged almost completely naked, covered with wet leaves and somehow quiet and resigned. But how beautiful it was when clear weather came again, clear and cold days of early October, the farewell holiday of autumn! The preserved foliage will now hang on the trees until the first winter. The black garden will shine through the cold turquoise sky and dutifully wait for winter, warming itself in the sunshine. And the fields are already turning sharply black with arable land and brightly green with overgrown winter crops... It's time to hunt! And now I see myself in the estate of Arseny Semenych, in a big house, in a hall full of sun and smoke from pipes and cigarettes. There are a lot of people - all the people are tanned, with weathered faces, wearing shorts and long boots. They have just had a very hearty lunch, are flushed and excited by noisy conversations about the upcoming hunt, but do not forget to finish the vodka after dinner. And in the yard a horn blows and dogs howl in different voices. The black greyhound, Arseny Semenych's favorite, climbs onto the table and begins to devour the remains of the hare with sauce from the dish. But suddenly he lets out a terrible squeal and, knocking over plates and glasses, rushes off the table: Arseny Semenych, who came out of the office with an arapnik and a revolver, suddenly deafens the room with a shot. The hall fills with smoke even more, and Arseny Semenych stands and laughs. - It's a pity that I missed! - he says, playing with his eyes. He is tall, thin, but broad-shouldered and slender, with a handsome gypsy face. His eyes sparkle wildly, he is very dexterous, wearing a crimson silk shirt, velvet trousers and long boots. Having frightened both the dog and the guests with a shot, he jokingly and importantly recites in a baritone voice:It's time, it's time to saddle the agile bottom
And throw the ringing horn over your shoulders! —
And says loudly:
- Well, however, there is no need to waste golden time! I can still feel how greedily and capaciously my young breast breathed in the cold of a clear and damp day in the evening, when you used to ride with Arseny Semenych’s noisy gang, excited by the musical din of dogs abandoned in the black forest, to some Krasny Bugor or Gremyachiy Island, Its name alone excites the hunter. You ride on an angry, strong and squat “Kyrgyz”, holding it tightly with the reins, and you feel almost fused with it. He snorts, asks to trot, rustles noisily with his hooves on the deep and light carpets of black crumbling leaves, and every sound resounds echoingly in the empty, damp and fresh forest. A dog barked somewhere in the distance, another, a third answered it passionately and pitifully - and suddenly the whole forest began to rattle, as if it were all made of glass, from violent barking and screaming. A shot rang out loudly among this din - and everything “cooked up” and rolled off into the distance. - Take care! - someone screamed in a desperate voice throughout the forest. “Oh, take care!” - an intoxicating thought flashes through your head. You whoop at your horse and, like someone who has broken free from a chain, you rush through the forest, not understanding anything along the way. Only the trees flash before my eyes and the mud from under the horse’s hooves hits my face. You will jump out of the forest, you will see a motley pack of dogs on the greens, stretched out on the ground, and you will push the “Kirghiz” even more against the beast - through the greens, shoots and stubbles, until, finally, you roll over to another island and the pack disappears from sight along with its frantic barking and moaning. Then, all wet and trembling from exertion, you rein in the foaming, wheezing horse and greedily swallow the icy dampness of the forest valley. The cries of hunters and the barking of dogs fade away in the distance, and there is dead silence around you. The half-opened timber stands motionless, and it seems that you have found yourself in some kind of protected palace. The ravines smell strongly of mushroom dampness, rotten leaves and wet tree bark. And the dampness from the ravines is becoming more and more noticeable, the forest is getting colder and darker... It's time to spend the night. But collecting dogs after a hunt is difficult. For a long time and hopelessly sadly the horns ring in the forest, for a long time you can hear the screams, swearing and squealing of dogs... Finally, already completely in the dark, a band of hunters bursts into the estate of some almost unknown bachelor landowner and fills the entire courtyard of the estate with noise, which is illuminated lanterns, candles and lamps brought out from the house to greet guests... It happened that with such a hospitable neighbor the hunt lasted for several days. At early morning dawn, in the icy wind and the first wet winter, they left for the forests and fields, and by dusk they returned again, all covered in dirt, with flushed faces, smelling of horse sweat, the hair of a hunted animal - and the drinking began. The bright and crowded house is very warm after a whole day in the cold in the field. Everyone walks from room to room in unbuttoned undershirts, drink and eat randomly, noisily conveying to each other their impressions of the killed seasoned wolf, which, baring its teeth, rolling its eyes, lies with its fluffy tail thrown to the side in the middle of the hall and paints its pale and already cold blood on the floor After vodka and food, you feel such sweet fatigue, such the bliss of youthful sleep, that you can hear people talking as if through water. Your weathered face is burning, and if you close your eyes, the whole earth will float under your feet. And when you lie down in bed, in a soft feather bed, somewhere in a corner old room with an icon and a lamp, ghosts of fiery-colored dogs flash before your eyes, a feeling of galloping ache in your whole body, and you won’t notice how you’ll drown along with all these images and sensations in a sweet and healthy sleep, even forgetting that this room was once the prayer room of an old man, whose name is surrounded by gloomy serf legends, and that he died in this prayer room, probably on the same bed. When I happened to oversleep the hunt, the rest was especially pleasant. You wake up and lie in bed for a long time. There is silence throughout the whole house. You can hear the gardener carefully walking through the rooms, lighting the stoves, and the firewood crackling and shooting. Ahead lies a whole day of peace in the already silent winter estate. Slowly get dressed, wander around the garden, find a cold and wet apple accidentally forgotten in the wet leaves, and for some reason it will seem unusually tasty, not at all like the others. Then you’ll get to work on books—grandfather’s books in thick leather bindings, with gold stars on morocco spines. These books, similar to church breviaries, smell wonderful with their yellowed, thick, rough paper! Some kind of pleasant sour mold, old perfume... The notes in their margins are also good, large and with round soft strokes made with a quill pen. You unfold the book and read: “A thought worthy of ancient and modern philosophers, the color of reason and feelings of the heart”... And you will involuntarily become carried away by the book itself. This is “The Noble Philosopher,” an allegory published a hundred years ago by the dependent of some “chevalier of many orders” and printed in the printing house of the order of public charity, a story about how “a noble philosopher, having time and the ability to reason, to to which the human mind can rise, I once received the desire to compose a plan of light in a spacious place of my village. Erasmus composed in the sixth and tenth centuries a praise of tomfoolery (mannerly pause, full stop); you command me to extol reason before you...” Then from Catherine’s antiquity you will move on to romantic times, to almanacs, to sentimentally pompous and long novels... The cuckoo jumps out of the clock and crows mockingly and sadly at you in an empty house. And little by little a sweet and strange melancholy begins to creep into my heart... Here is “The Secrets of Alexis”, here is “Victor, or the Child in the Forest”: “Midnight strikes! Sacred silence takes the place of daytime noise and cheerful songs of the villagers. Sleep spreads its dark wings over the surface of our hemisphere; he shakes off darkness and dreams from them... Dreams... How often do they continue only the suffering of the ill-fated!..” And favorite ancient words flash before their eyes: rocks and oak groves, pale moon and loneliness, ghosts and phantoms, “herots”, roses and lilies, “the pranks and frolics of young rascals,” the lily hand, Lyudmila and Alina... And here are the magazines with the names: Zhukovsky, Batyushkov, lyceum student Pushkin. And with sadness you will remember your grandmother, her polonaises on the clavichord, her languid reading of poems from Eugene Onegin. And the old dreamy life will appear before you... Good girls and women once lived in noble estates! Their portraits look at me from the wall, aristocratically beautiful heads in ancient hairstyles meekly and femininely lower their long eyelashes onto sad and tender eyes...
