Dark alleys(1). Online reading of the book Dark Alleys I

Before evening, on the way to Chern, the young merchant Krasilshchikov was caught in a downpour and thunderstorm.

He, in a tunic with a raised collar and a deeply pulled cap, from which streams flowed, rode briskly on a racing droshky, sitting astride next to the shield, firmly resting his feet in high boots on the front axle, pulling the wet, slippery belt reins with his wet, frozen hands, hurrying the already frisky horse; to his left, near the front wheel, which was spinning in a fountain of liquid mud, a brown pointer was running smoothly, his tongue hanging out long.

At first, Krasilshchikov drove along the black earth track along the highway, then, when it turned into a solid gray stream with bubbles, he turned onto the highway and rattled over its fine gravel. Neither the surrounding fields nor the sky were visible for a long time behind this flood, smelling of cucumber freshness and phosphorus; before my eyes every now and then, like a sign of the end of the world, a blinding ruby fire sinuously burned from top to bottom great wall There was a sharp, branched lightning from the clouds, and a hissing tail flew overhead with a crash, which was then torn apart by blows unusual in its crushing power. Every time the horse jerked forward from them, pressing its ears, the dog was already walking at a gallop... Krasilshchikov grew up and studied in Moscow, graduated from the university there, but when he came to his home in the summer Tula estate, looking like a rich dacha, he loved to feel like a landowner-merchant who had come from a peasant background, drank Lafite and smoked from a gold cigarette case, and wore oiled boots, a blouse and a jacket, was proud of his Russian article, and now, in the downpour and roar, feeling how he had cold pouring from his visor and nose, and was full of the energetic pleasure of village life. This summer he often recalled the summer in Last year, when he, due to communication with one famous actress, suffered in Moscow until July, before she left for Kislovodsk: idleness, heat, hot stench and green smoke from asphalt burning in iron vats in the torn up streets, breakfasts in Troitsky Nizok with the actors of the Maly Theater, who were also going to the Caucasus, then sitting in Tremblay coffee shop, in the evening waiting for her in her apartment with furniture in covers, with chandeliers and paintings in muslin, with the smell of mothballs... Summer Moscow evenings are endless, it only gets dark at eleven, and you wait and wait - she’s still not there. Then, finally, the bell rang - and she, in all her summer finery, and her breathless voice: “Please forgive me, I’ve been lying flat all day with a headache, your tea rose has completely withered, I was in such a hurry that I took a reckless driver, I’m terribly hungry...”

When the downpour and the shaking rolls of thunder began to subside, recede, and things began to clear up, the familiar inn of the old widower, tradesman Pronin, appeared ahead, to the left of the highway. There were still twenty miles left to the city, - we must wait, thought Krasilshchikov, the horse is all in soap and it is still unknown what will happen again, look how black it is in that direction and is still burning... At the crossing to the inn, he turned at a trot and stopped near a wooden porch.

Grandfather! - he shouted loudly. - Receive a guest!

But the windows in the log house under the rusty iron roof were dark, and no one responded to the cry. Krasilshchikov wrapped the reins around his shield, went up onto the porch after the dirty and wet dog that had jumped up there - she looked mad, her eyes sparkled brightly and meaninglessly - he pulled his cap from his sweaty forehead, took off his coat, which was heavy from the water, threw it on the porch railing and , remaining in one jacket with a belt in a silver set, wiped his face, mottled from dirty splashes, and began to clean the dirt from his boots with a whip. The door to the hallway was open, but it was felt that the house was empty. That’s right, the cattle are being harvested, he thought and, straightening up, looked into the field: should he go further? The evening air was still and damp, from different sides quails cheerfully beat in the distance in bread weighed down with moisture, the rain had stopped, but night was approaching, the sky and earth were gloomily darkening, beyond the highway, behind the low inky ridge of the forest, the cloud was even thicker and darker, wide and a red flame flashed ominously - and Krasilshchikov stepped into the entryway and fumbled in the darkness for the door to the upper room. But the room was dark and quiet, only somewhere the ruble clock on the wall was tapping. He slammed the door, turned left, fumbled and opened another one into the hut: again there was no one, only flies hummed sleepily and displeasedly in the hot darkness on the ceiling.

How they died! - he said out loud - and immediately heard the quick and melodious, half-childish voice of Styopa, the owner’s daughter, slipping off the bunk in the darkness:

Is it you, Vasil Likseich? And here I am alone, the cook had a fight with the broadswords and went home, and dad took the worker and went to the city on business, they are unlikely to return today... I was scared to death by the thunderstorm, and then I heard someone drive up, I was even more scared ...Hello, excuse me please...

Krasilshchikov struck a match, illuminating her black eyes and dark face:

Hello, fool. I’m also going to the city, yes, you see what’s going on, I stopped by to wait... So you thought the robbers had arrived?

The match began to burn out, but you could still see that shyly smiling face, the coral necklace on her neck, her small breasts under her yellow chintz dress... She was almost half his height and seemed like just a girl.

“I’ll light the lamp now,” she spoke hastily, embarrassed even more by Krasilshchikov’s watchful gaze, and rushed to the light bulb above the table. “God himself sent you, what would I do here alone,” she said melodiously, rising on tiptoe and awkwardly pulling glass from the jagged grille of the light bulb, from its tin mug.

Krasilshchikov lit another match, looking at her stretched out and twisted figure.

Wait, don’t,” he suddenly said, throwing the match and took her by the waist. - Wait, turn to me for a minute...

She looked at him over her shoulder with fear, dropped her hands and turned around. He pulled her towards him - she didn’t struggle, she just threw her head back wildly and in surprise. From above, he looked directly and firmly into her eyes through the darkness and laughed:

Are you even more scared?

Vasil Likseich... - she muttered pleadingly and reached out of his hands.

Wait a minute. Don't you like me? Because I know, I’m always happy when I stop by.

There is no one better than you in the world,” she said quietly and passionately.

You see now…

He kissed her on the lips for a long time, and his hands slid lower.

Vasil Likseich... for Christ's sake... You forgot, your horse remained under the porch... dad will come... Oh, don't!

Half an hour later, he left the hut, took the horse into the yard, put it under a canopy, took off its bridle, gave it wet, mown grass from a cart that stood in the middle of the yard, and returned, looking at the calm stars in the cleared sky. People were still looking into the hot darkness of the quiet hut from different weak sides, distant lightning. She lay on the bunk, all curled up, burying her head in her chest, crying hotly from horror, delight and the suddenness of what had happened. He kissed her wet cheek, salty from tears, lay down on his back and put her head on his shoulder, right hand holding a cigarette. She lay quietly, silently; he, smoking, gently and absentmindedly stroked her hair with his left hand, which tickled his chin... Then she immediately fell asleep. He lay there, looking into the darkness, and grinned smugly: “And daddy left for the city...” So they left for you! It’s bad, he’ll understand everything right away - such a dry and quick old man in a gray jacket, a snow-white beard, but thick eyebrows still completely black, an unusually lively look, he talks incessantly when he’s drunk, but he sees right through everything...

He lay awake until the hour when the darkness of the hut began to lighten faintly in the middle, between the ceiling and the floor. Turning his head, he saw the east turning greenishly white outside the windows and could already discern in the darkness of the corner above the table a large image of a saint in church vestments, his raised blessing hand and an inexorably menacing gaze. He looked at her: she was lying there, still curled up, her legs crossed, she had forgotten everything in her sleep! Sweet and pathetic girl...

When it became completely light in the sky and the rooster different voices began to yell behind the wall, he made a movement to get up. She jumped up and, half sitting sideways, with her chest unbuttoned and her hair tangled, stared at him with eyes that understood nothing.

Styopa,” he said carefully. - I have to go.

Are you on your way? - she whispered senselessly.

And suddenly she came to her senses and hit herself crosswise in the chest with her hands:

Where are you going? How can I live without you now? What should I do now?

Styopa, I’ll come again soon...

But dad will be at home - how can I see you! I would come to the forest beyond the highway, but how could I leave home?

He gritted his teeth and knocked her over. She spread her arms wide and exclaimed in sweet, as if dying despair: “Ah!”

Then he stood in front of the bunk, already in a jacket, in a cap, with a whip in his hand, with his back to the windows, to the thick shine of the sun that had just appeared, and she stood on her knees on the bunk and, sobbing, childishly and uglyly opening her mouth, abruptly reprimanded:

Vasil Likseich... for the sake of Christ... for the sake of the king of heaven himself, take me in marriage! I will be your last slave! I’ll sleep at your doorstep - take it! I would have left for you anyway, but who would let me in like that! Vasil Likseich...

The heat of love in every kingdom,
The whole circle loves the earthly...
And what kind of sin could there be if even an old man thinks about his beloved, sighs about her? But here the matter was completely different, here it seemed like his own daughter, and he extended his greedy intentions to fornication.
- So what?
- Because, sir, having noticed such parental intent, the young prince decided to run away secretly. He persuaded the grooms, gave them all sorts of gifts, ordered them to harness up the troika by midnight, and went out stealthily as soon as he fell asleep. old prince, from his home, took his young wife out - and that was it. Only the old prince did not even think about sleeping: in the evening he learned everything from his headphones and immediately went in pursuit. It’s night, there’s an unspeakable frost, there’s already a circle around the month, there’s snow in the steppe taller than a man’s height, but he doesn’t care about everything: he’s flying, all hung with sabers and pistols, on horseback, next to his favorite rider, and he already sees the troika with his son ahead. He screams like an eagle: stop, I’ll shoot! But there they don’t listen, they drive the troika with all their spirit and ardor. Then the old prince began to shoot at the horses and, as they galloped, first killed one of the horses, the right one, then the other, the left one, and was just about to knock down the horseman, but he looked to the side and saw: rushing towards him through the snow, under the moon, a great, unprecedented wolf, with eyes , like fire, red and radiant around the head! The prince started firing at him, but he didn’t even blink an eye: he rushed at the prince like a whirlwind, rushed to his chest - and in a single moment cut his Adam’s apple with his fang.
“Oh, what passions, Mashenka,” I said. - Truly a ballad!
“It’s a sin, don’t laugh, sir,” she answered. - God has a lot of everything.
- I don’t argue, Mashenka. It’s just strange that they painted this wolf right next to the grave of the prince he killed.
- It was written, sir, by at will prince: they brought him home still alive, and before his death he managed to repent and take communion, and at his last moment he ordered that wolf to be painted in the church over his grave: for the edification, therefore, of all the princely descendants. Who could disobey him in those days? And the church was his home, built by him.
February 3, 1938

Before evening, on the way to Chern, the young merchant Krasilshchikov was caught in a downpour and thunderstorm.
He, in a tunic with a raised collar and a deeply pulled cap, from which streams flowed, rode briskly on a racing droshky, sitting astride next to the shield, firmly resting his feet in high boots on the front axle, pulling the wet, slippery belt reins with his wet, frozen hands, hurrying the already frisky horse; to his left, near the front wheel, which was spinning in a fountain of liquid mud, a brown pointer was running smoothly, his tongue hanging out long.
At first, Krasilshchikov drove along the black earth track along the highway, then, when it turned into a solid gray stream with bubbles, he turned onto the highway and rattled over its fine gravel. Neither the surrounding fields nor the sky were visible for a long time behind this flood, smelling of cucumber freshness and phosphorus; before my eyes, every now and then, like a sign of the end of the world, a sharp, branched lightning would sinuously burn from top to bottom along the great wall of clouds with a blinding ruby fire, and overhead a hissing tail would fly with a crash, which would then burst into blows extraordinary in its crushing power. Every time the horse jerked forward from them, pressing its ears, the dog was already walking at a gallop... Krasilshchikov grew up and studied in Moscow, graduated from the university there, but when he came in the summer to his Tula estate, which looked like a rich dacha, he loved to feel like a landowner-merchant, coming from a peasant background, he drank Lafite and smoked from a gold cigarette case, and wore oiled boots, a blouse and a jacket, was proud of his Russian article, and now, in the downpour and roar, feeling how cold it was pouring from his visor and nose, he was full of energetic pleasure village life. This summer, he often recalled the summer of last year, when, because of a relationship with a famous actress, he suffered in Moscow until July, before she left for Kislovodsk: idleness, heat, hot stench and green smoke from the burning in iron vats asphalt in the torn up streets, breakfasts in Troitsky Nizok with the actors of the Maly Theater, who were also going to the Caucasus, then sitting in the Tremblay coffee shop, in the evening waiting for her in her apartment with furniture in covers, with chandeliers and paintings in muslin, with the smell of mothballs... Summer Moscow the evenings are endless, it only gets dark at eleven, and you wait and wait - she’s still not there. Then, finally, the bell rang - and she, in all her summer finery, and her breathless voice: “Please forgive me, I’ve been lying flat all day with a headache, your tea rose has completely withered, I was in such a hurry that I took a reckless driver, I’m terribly hungry...”
When the downpour and the shaking rolls of thunder began to subside, recede, and things began to clear up, the familiar inn of the old widower, tradesman Pronin, appeared ahead, to the left of the highway. There were still twenty miles left to the city - we must wait, thought Krasilshchikov, the horse is all covered in soap and it is still unknown what will happen again, look how black it is in that direction and is still on fire... At the crossing to the inn, he turned at a trot and stopped near a wooden porch.
- Grandfather! - he shouted loudly. - Receive a guest!
But the windows in the log house under the rusty iron roof were dark, and no one responded to the cry. Krasilshchikov wrapped the reins around his shield, went up onto the porch after the dirty and wet dog that had jumped up there - she looked mad, her eyes sparkled brightly and meaninglessly - he pulled his cap from his sweaty forehead, took off his coat, which was heavy from the water, threw it on the porch railing and , remaining in one jacket with a belt in a silver set, wiped his face, mottled from dirty splashes, and began to clean the dirt from his boots with a whip. The door to the hallway was open, but it was felt that the house was empty. That’s right, the cattle are being harvested, he thought and, straightening up, looked into the field: should he go further? The evening air was still and damp, from different sides quails were cheerfully beating in the distance in bread weighed down with moisture, the rain had stopped, but night was approaching, the sky and earth were gloomily darkening, beyond the highway, behind the low inky ridge of the forest, the cloud was even thicker and darker, wide and a red flame flashed ominously - and Krasilshchikov stepped into the entryway and fumbled in the darkness for the door to the upper room. But the room was dark and quiet, only somewhere the ruble clock on the wall was tapping. He slammed the door, turned left, fumbled and opened another one into the hut: again there was no one, only flies hummed sleepily and displeasedly in the hot darkness on the ceiling.
- How they died! - he said out loud - and immediately heard the quick and melodious, half-childish voice of Styopa, the owner’s daughter, slipping off the bunk in the darkness:
- Is it you, Vasil Likseich? And here I am alone, the cook had a fight with the broadswords and went home, and dad took the worker and went to the city on business, they are unlikely to return today... I was scared to death by the thunderstorm, and then I heard someone drive up, I was even more scared ...Hello, excuse me please...
Krasilshchikov struck a match, illuminating her black eyes and dark face:
- Hello, fool. I’m also going to the city, yes, you see what’s going on, I stopped by to wait... So you thought the robbers had arrived?
The match began to burn out, but you could still see that shyly smiling face, the coral necklace on her neck, her small breasts under her yellow chintz dress... She was almost half his height and seemed like just a girl.
“I’ll light the lamp now,” she spoke hastily, embarrassed even more by Krasilshchikov’s watchful gaze, and rushed to the light bulb above the table. “God himself sent you, what would I do here alone,” she said melodiously, rising on tiptoe and awkwardly pulling glass from the jagged grille of the light bulb, from its tin mug.
Krasilshchikov lit another match, looking at her stretched out and twisted figure.
“Wait, don’t,” he suddenly said, throwing the match and took her by the waist. - Wait, turn to me for a minute...
She looked at him over her shoulder with fear, dropped her hands and turned around. He pulled her towards him - she didn’t struggle, she just threw her head back wildly and in surprise. From above, he looked directly and firmly into her eyes through the darkness and laughed:
-Are you even more scared?
“Vasil Likseich...” she muttered pleadingly and reached out of his hands.
- Wait a minute. Don't you like me? Because I know, I’m always happy when I stop by.
“There is no one better than you in the world,” she said quietly and passionately.
- You see now…
He kissed her on the lips for a long time, and his hands slid lower.
- Vasil Likseich... for Christ's sake... You forgot, your horse remained under the porch... dad will come... Oh, don't!
Half an hour later, he left the hut, took the horse into the yard, put it under a canopy, took off its bridle, gave it wet, mown grass from a cart that stood in the middle of the yard, and returned, looking at the calm stars in the cleared sky. Faint, distant lightning still peeked into the hot darkness of the quiet hut from different directions. She lay on the bunk, all curled up, burying her head in her chest, crying hotly from horror, delight and the suddenness of what had happened. He kissed her cheek, wet and salty from tears, lay down on his back and put her head on his shoulder, holding a cigarette with his right hand. She lay quietly, silently; he, smoking, gently and absentmindedly stroked her hair with his left hand, which tickled his chin... Then she immediately fell asleep. He lay there, looking into the darkness, and grinned smugly: “And daddy left for the city...” So they left for you! It’s bad, he’ll understand everything right away - such a dry and quick old man in a gray jacket, a snow-white beard, but thick eyebrows still completely black, an unusually lively look, he talks incessantly when he’s drunk, but he sees right through everything...
He lay awake until the hour when the darkness of the hut began to lighten faintly in the middle, between the ceiling and the floor. Turning his head, he saw the east turning greenishly white outside the windows and could already discern in the darkness of the corner above the table a large image of a saint in church vestments, his raised blessing hand and an inexorably menacing gaze. He looked at her: she was lying there, still curled up, her legs crossed, she had forgotten everything in her sleep! Sweet and pathetic girl...
When it became completely light in the sky and the rooster began to crow in different voices behind the wall, he made a movement to rise. She jumped up and, half sitting sideways, with her chest unbuttoned, her hair tangled, stared at him with eyes that understood nothing.
“Styopa,” he said carefully. - I have to go.
-Are you on your way? - she whispered senselessly.
And suddenly she came to her senses and hit herself crosswise in the chest with her hands:
-Where are you going? How can I live without you now? What should I do now?
- Styopa, I’ll come again soon...
- But dad will be at home - how can I see you! I would come to the forest beyond the highway, but how could I leave home?
He gritted his teeth and knocked her over. She spread her arms wide and exclaimed in sweet, as if dying despair: “Ah!”
Then he stood in front of the bunk, already in a jacket, in a cap, with a whip in his hand, with his back to the windows, to the thick shine of the sun that had just appeared, and she stood on the bunk on her knees and, sobbing, childishly and uglyly opening her mouth, abruptly reprimanded:
- Vasil Likseich... for the sake of Christ... for the sake of the king of heaven himself, marry me! I will be your last slave! I’ll sleep at your doorstep - take it! I would have left for you anyway, but who would let me in like that! Vasil Likseich...
“Shut up,” Krasilshchikov said sternly. - One of these days I will come to your father and tell him that I will marry you. Did you hear?
She sat down on her feet, immediately stopping her sobs, and stupidly opened her wet, radiant eyes:
- Is it true?
- Of course it's true.
“I’m already on my sixteenth day at Epiphany,” she said hastily.
- Well, that means we can get married in six months...
Returning home, he immediately began to get ready and in the evening he left in a troika for railway. Two days later he was already in Kislovodsk.
October 5, 1938

MUSE

I was then no longer in my first youth, but I decided to study painting - I always had a passion for it - and, abandoning my estate in the Tambov province, I spent the winter in Moscow: I took lessons from one mediocre, but quite famous artist, an unkempt fat man who has perfectly mastered everything that is required: long hair, large greasy curls thrown back, a pipe in his teeth, a velvet garnet jacket, dirty gray leggings on his shoes - I especially hated them - carelessness in handling, a condescending glance with narrowed eyes at the student’s work and this, as if to himself:
- Interesting, interesting... Undoubted success...
I lived on Arbat, next to the Prague restaurant, in the Capital rooms. During the day I worked at the artist’s house and at home, and often spent my evenings in cheap restaurants with various new bohemian acquaintances, both young and shabby, but equally devoted to billiards and crayfish with beer... I lived an unpleasant and boring life! This effeminate, unscrupulous artist, his “artistically” neglected workshop, littered with all sorts of dusty props, this gloomy “Capital”... I remember: the snow is constantly falling outside the windows, the trams are muffled, ringing along the Arbat, in the evening the sour stink of beer and gas in the dim in a lighted restaurant... I don’t understand why I led such a miserable existence - I was far from poor then.
But then one day in March, when I was sitting at home, working with pencils, and the open windows of the double frames were no longer wafting with the winter dampness of sleet and rain, the unwinter clatter of horseshoes on the pavement, and the horse-cars seemed to be ringing more musically, someone knocked on the my hallway door. I shouted: who is there? - but there was no answer. I waited, shouted again - again silence, then another knock. I stood up and opened the door: standing at the threshold was a tall girl in a gray winter hat, a gray straight coat, gray boots, looking straight at her, eyes the color of acorns, long eyelashes, drops of rain and snow glisten on your face and hair under your hat; looks and says:
- I am a conservative, Muse Graf. I heard that you interesting person, and came to meet. Do you have anything against it?
Quite surprised, I responded, of course, politely:
- I’m very flattered, you’re welcome. I just have to warn you that the rumors that have reached you are unlikely to be correct: there seems to be nothing interesting about me.
“In any case, let me in, don’t hold me in front of the door,” she said, still looking straight at me. - We're flattered, so accept it.
And, having entered, she began, as if at home, to take off her hat in front of my gray-silver, in places blackened mirror, straighten her rusty hair, took off and threw her coat on a chair, remaining in a checkered flannel dress, sat down on the sofa, sniffing her nose wet from the snow and rain, and ordered:
- Take off my boots and give me a handkerchief from my coat.
I handed her a handkerchief, she dried herself and held out her feet to me.
“I saw you yesterday at Shor’s concert,” she said indifferently.
Holding back a stupid smile of pleasure and bewilderment - what a strange guest! - I obediently took off my boots one by one. The air still smelled fresh from her, and I was excited by this smell, excited by the combination of her masculinity with all that feminine youth that was in her face, in her straight eyes, in her large and beautiful hand, - in everything that I looked and felt, pulling off the boots from under her dress, under which her knees lay round and plump, seeing bulging calves in thin gray stockings and elongated feet in open patent leather shoes.
Then she sat down comfortably on the sofa, apparently not intending to leave soon. Not knowing what to say, I began to ask from whom and what she had heard about me and who she was, where and with whom she lived. She answered.
- From whom and what I heard, it doesn’t matter. I went more because I saw it at the concert. You are quite beautiful. And I doctor's daughter, I live not far from you, on Prechistensky Boulevard.
She spoke somehow unexpectedly and briefly. Again, not knowing what to say, I asked:
- Do you want some tea?
“I want to,” she said. - And order, if you have money, to buy ranet apples from Belov - here, on the Arbat. Just hurry up the bellhop, I'm impatient.
- And you seem so calm.
- You never know what it seems...
When the bellhop brought the samovar and a bag of apples, she made tea, ground the cups, spoons...
And after eating an apple and drinking a cup of tea, she moved deeper on the sofa and patted her hand next to her:
- Now sit with me.
I sat down, she hugged me, slowly kissed me on the lips, pulled away, looked and, as if convinced that I was worthy, closed her eyes and kissed me again - diligently, for a long time.
“Well,” she said as if relieved. - Nothing more is possible for now. Day after tomorrow.
It was already completely dark in the room, only the sad half-light from the lanterns from the street. It’s easy to imagine how I felt. Where does all of a sudden such happiness come from! Young, strong, the taste and shape of her lips are extraordinary... As if in a dream, I heard the monotonous ringing of horses, the clatter of hooves...
“I want to have lunch with you at Prague the day after tomorrow,” she said. - I’ve never been there and I’m generally very inexperienced. I imagine what you think about me. But in fact, you are my first love.
- Love?
- What is another name for this?
Of course, I soon abandoned my studies, but she continued hers somehow. We did not part, we lived like newlyweds, went to art galleries, exhibitions, listened to concerts and even for some reason public lectures... In May, at her request, I moved to an old estate near Moscow, where small dachas were set up and rented out, and she began to visit me, returning to Moscow at one in the morning. I never expected this either - a dacha near Moscow: I had never lived as a summer resident, without any business, in an estate so different from our steppe estates, and in such a climate.
It rains all the time, all around pine forests. Every now and then, in the bright blue, white clouds accumulate above them, thunder rolls high, then brilliant rain begins to fall through the sun, quickly turning from the heat into fragrant pine steam... Everything is wet, greasy, mirror-like... In the estate park, the trees were so large that the dachas , in some places built in it, seemed small under them, like dwellings under trees in tropical countries. The pond stood like a huge black mirror, half covered with green duckweed... I lived on the outskirts of the park, in the forest. My log dacha was not completely finished - uncaulked walls, unplaned floors, stoves without dampers, almost no furniture. And from the constant dampness, my boots, lying under the bed, were overgrown with velvet mold.
It got dark in the evenings only at midnight: the half-light of the west stands and stands through the motionless, quiet forests. IN moonlit nights this half-light strangely interfered with moonlight, also motionless, enchanted. And from the calm that reigned everywhere, from the purity of the sky and air, it seemed that there would be no more rain. But then I fell asleep, having escorted her to the station, and suddenly I heard: a downpour with thunderclaps was falling on the roof again, darkness was all around and lightning was falling vertically... In the morning, on the purple ground in the damp alleys, there were shadows and dazzling spots of the sun, the birds called flycatchers, thrushes chattered hoarsely. By noon it was floating again, clouds appeared and rain began to fall. Before sunset it became clear, on my log walls the crystal-golden net of the low sun trembled, falling into the windows through the foliage. Then I went to the station to meet her. The train was approaching, countless summer residents were pouring out onto the platform, there was a smell of coal from the locomotive and the damp freshness of the forest, she appeared in the crowd, with a net laden with bags of snacks, fruit, a bottle of Madeira... We dined together eye to eye. Before her late departure we wandered around the park. She became somnambulistic and walked with her head leaning on my shoulder. Black pond, centuries-old trees stretching into starry sky... An enchanted, bright night, endlessly silent, with endlessly long shadows of trees on silver meadows that look like lakes.
In June she went with me to my village - without getting married, she began to live with me as a wife and began to manage her household. I spent the long autumn not bored, in everyday worries, reading. Of our neighbors, the one who most often visited us was a certain Zavistovsky, a lonely, poor landowner who lived about two versts from us, frail, red-haired, timid, narrow-minded - and not a bad musician. In winter, he began to appear with us almost every evening. I had known him since childhood, but now I was so used to him that an evening without him was strange to me. We played checkers with him, or he played four hands with her on the piano.
Before Christmas I once went to the city. He returned by moonlight. And, entering the house, he did not find her anywhere. I sat down at the samovar alone.
- Where is the lady, Dunya? Did you go for a walk?
- I don’t know, sir. They haven't been home since breakfast.
“Get dressed and leave,” my old nanny said gloomily, walking through the dining room and without raising her head.
“That’s right, I went to Zavistovsky,” I thought, “that’s right, she’ll come with him soon - it’s already seven o’clock...” And I went and lay down in the office and suddenly fell asleep - I’d been freezing on the road all day. And just as suddenly he woke up an hour later - with a clear and wild thought: “But she left me! She hired a man in the village and went to the station, to Moscow - everything will happen from her! But maybe she came back? I walked around the house - no, I didn’t come back. Shame on the servants...
At about ten o'clock, not knowing what to do, I put on a sheepskin coat, took a gun for some reason and walked along the high road to Zavistovsky, thinking: “As if on purpose, he didn’t come today, and I still have a whole scary night ahead! Has she really left and abandoned her? No, it can’t be!” I walk, creaking along a well-worn path among the snow, the snow fields on the left shine under the low, poor moon... I turned off high road, went to the Zavistovsky estate: an alley of bare trees leading to it across a field, then the entrance to the courtyard, on the left is an old, poor house, it’s dark in the house... He climbed onto the icy porch, with difficulty opened the heavy door in shreds of upholstery - in the hallway the open door was red a burnt-out stove, warmth and darkness... But it’s dark in the hall too.
- Vikenty Vikentich!
And he silently, in felt boots, appeared on the threshold of the office, also lit only by the moon through the triple window.
- Oh, it’s you... Come in, come in, please... And I, as you can see, am at dusk, whileing away the evening without a fire...
I walked in and sat down on the lumpy sofa.
- Imagine. The muse has disappeared somewhere...
He said nothing. Then in an almost inaudible voice:
- Yes, yes, I understand you...
- That is, what do you understand?
And immediately, also silently, also in felt boots, with a shawl on her shoulders, Muse came out of the bedroom adjacent to the office.
“You have a gun,” she said. - If you want to shoot, then shoot not at him, but at me.
And she sat down on the other sofa, opposite.
I looked at her felt boots, at her knees under a gray skirt - everything was clearly visible in the golden light falling from the window - I wanted to shout: “I can’t live without you, for these knees alone, for the skirt, for the felt boots I’m ready to give my life.” !
“The matter is clear and over,” she said. - The scenes are useless.
“You are monstrously cruel,” I said with difficulty.
“Give me a cigarette,” she said to Zavistovsky.
He cowardly leaned towards her, handed her a cigarette case, began rummaging through his pockets for matches...
“You’re already speaking to me on a first-name basis,” I said, breathless, “you could at least not speak to him on a first-name basis in front of me.”
- Why? - she asked, raising her eyebrows, holding her cigarette out of the way.
My heart was already pounding in my throat, beating in my temples. I got up and, staggering, walked out.
October 17, 1938

LATE HOUR

Oh, it’s been so long since I’ve been there, I said to myself. From the age of nineteen. I once lived in Russia, felt it was my own, had complete freedom to travel anywhere, and it was not difficult to travel just three hundred miles. But I didn’t go, I kept putting it off. And years and decades went by and by. But now we can’t put it off any longer: it’s either now or never. I must take advantage of the only and last opportunity, since the hour is late and no one will meet me.
And I walked across the bridge over the river, far away seeing everything around in the monthly light July night.
The bridge was so familiar, the same as before, as if I had seen it yesterday: crudely ancient, humpbacked and as if not even stone, but somehow petrified from time to eternal indestructibility - as a high school student I thought that it was still under Batu. However, only some traces of the city walls on the cliff under the cathedral and this bridge speak of the antiquity of the city. Everything else is old, provincial, nothing more. One thing was strange, one thing indicated that something had changed in the world since I was a boy, a young man: before the river was not navigable, but now it has probably been deepened and cleared; The moon was to my left, quite far above the river, and in its unsteady light and in the flickering, trembling shine of the water there was a white paddle steamer, which seemed empty - it was so silent - although all its portholes were illuminated, like motionless golden eyes and all were reflected in the water as flowing golden pillars: the steamer was exactly standing on them. This happened in Yaroslavl, and in the Suez Canal, and on the Nile. In Paris, the nights are damp, dark, a hazy glow turns pink in the impenetrable sky, the Seine flows under the bridges like black tar, but below them also flowing columns of reflections from the lanterns on the bridges hang, only they are three-colored: white, blue and red - Russian national flags. There are no lights on the bridge here, and it is dry and dusty. And ahead, on the hill, the city is darkened by gardens; a fire tower sticks out above the gardens. My God, what an unspeakable happiness it was! It was during the night fire that I first kissed your hand and you squeezed mine in response - I will never forget this secret consent. The whole street turned black with people in an ominous, unusual illumination. I was visiting you when the alarm suddenly sounded and everyone rushed to the windows, and then behind the gate. It was burning far away, across the river, but terribly hot, greedily, urgently. There, clouds of smoke poured out thickly in a black-purple fleece, crimson sheets of flame burst out of them high, and near us they, trembling, shone copper in the dome of the Archangel Michael. And in the cramped space, in the crowd, amid the anxious, sometimes pitiful, sometimes joyful talk of the common people who had come running from everywhere, I heard the smell of your girlish hair, neck, canvas dress - and then suddenly I decided, I took, completely frozen, your hand...

Before evening, on the way to Chern, the young merchant Krasilshchikov was caught in a downpour and thunderstorm.

He, in a jacket with a raised collar and a deep cap, from which streams flowed, rode briskly on a racing droshky, sitting astride next to the shield, firmly resting his feet in high boots on the front axle, tugging with wet, frozen hands on the wet, slippery belt reins, hurrying the already frisky horse; to his left, near the front wheel, which was spinning in a fountain of liquid mud, a brown pointer was running smoothly, his tongue hanging out long.

At first, Krasilshchikov drove along the black earth track along the highway, then, when it turned into a continuous gray stream with bubbles, he turned onto the highway and rattled over its fine gravel. Neither the surrounding fields nor the sky were visible for a long time behind this flood, smelling of cucumber freshness and phosphorus; before my eyes, every now and then, like a sign of the end of the world, a sharp, branched lightning burned sinuously from top to bottom along the great wall of clouds with a blinding ruby fire, and a hissing tail flew overhead with a crash, which was then torn apart by blows unusual in its crushing power. Every time the horse jerked forward from them, pressing its ears, the dog was already walking at a gallop... Krasilshchikov grew up and studied in Moscow, graduated from the university there, but when he came in the summer to his Tula estate, which looked like a rich dacha, he loved to feel like a landowner-merchant, came from a peasant background, drank Lafite and smoked from a gold cigarette case, and wore greased boots, a blouse and a jacket, was proud of his Russian article, and now, in the downpour and roar, feeling how cold it was pouring from his visor and nose, he was full of the energetic pleasure of the village life. This summer, he often recalled the summer of last year, when, because of a relationship with a famous actress, he suffered in Moscow until July, before she left for Kislovodsk: idleness, heat, hot stench and green smoke from the burning in iron vats asphalt in the torn up streets, breakfasts in Troitsky Nizok with the actors of the Maly Theater, who were also going to the Caucasus, then sitting in the Tremblay coffee house, in the evening waiting for her in her apartment with furniture in covers, with chandeliers and paintings in muslin, with the smell of mothballs... Summer Moscow the evenings are endless, it only gets dark at eleven, and you wait and wait – she’s still not there. Then, finally, the bell rang - and she, in all her summer finery, and her breathless voice: “Please forgive me, I’ve been lying flat all day with a headache, your tea rose has completely withered, I was in such a hurry that I took a reckless driver, I’m terribly hungry...”

When the downpour and the shaking rolls of thunder began to subside, recede, and things began to clear up, the familiar inn of the old widower, tradesman Pronin, appeared ahead, to the left of the highway. There were still twenty miles left to the city - we have to wait, thought Krasilshchikov, the horse is all in soap, and it’s still unknown what will happen again, look how black it is in that direction and it’s still burning... At the crossing to the inn, he turned at a trot and stopped near wooden porch.

- Grandfather! – he shouted loudly. - Receive a guest!

But the windows in the log house under the rusty iron roof were dark, and no one responded to the cry. Krasilshchikov wrapped the reins around his shield, went up onto the porch after the dirty and wet dog that had jumped up there - she looked mad, her eyes sparkled brightly and meaninglessly - he pulled his cap from his sweaty forehead, took off his coat, which was heavy from the water, threw it on the porch railing and , remaining in one undercoat with a belt in a silver set, wiped his face, mottled from dirty splashes, and began to clean the dirt from his boots with a whip. The door to the hallway was open, but it was felt that the house was empty. That’s right, the cattle are being harvested, he thought and, straightening up, looked into the field: should he go further? The evening air was still and damp, from different sides quails were cheerfully beating in the distance in bread weighed down with moisture, the rain had stopped, but night was approaching, the sky and earth were gloomily darkening, beyond the highway, behind the low inky ridge of the forest, the cloud was even thicker and darker, wide and a red flame flashed ominously - and Krasilshchikov stepped into the entryway and fumbled in the darkness for the door to the upper room. But the room was dark and quiet, only somewhere the ruble clock on the wall was tapping. He slammed the door, turned left, fumbled and opened another one into the hut: again there was no one, only flies hummed sleepily and displeasedly in the hot darkness on the ceiling.

- How they died! - he said out loud - and immediately heard the quick and melodious, half-childish voice of Styopa, the owner’s daughter, slipping off the bunk in the darkness:

- Is it you, Vasil Likseich? And here I am alone, the cook had a fight with dad and went home, and dad took a worker and went to the city on business, they’re unlikely to come back today... I was scared to death by the thunderstorm, and then I heard someone drive up, I got even more scared... Hello , excuse me please…

Krasilshchikov struck a match and illuminated her black eyes and dark face:

- Hello, fool. I’m also going to the city, yes, you see what’s going on, I stopped by to wait... So you thought the robbers had arrived?

Krasilshchikov lit another match, looking at her stretched out and twisted figure.

“Wait, don’t,” he suddenly said, throwing the match and took her by the waist. - Wait, turn to me for a minute...

-Are you even more scared?

“Vasil Likseich...” she muttered pleadingly and reached out of his hands.

- Wait a minute. Don't you like me? Because I know, I’m always glad when I stop by.

“There is no one better than you in the world,” she said quietly and passionately.

- You see now…

He kissed her lips for a long time, and his hands slid lower.

- Vasil Likseich... for Christ's sake... You forgot, your horse remained under the porch... dad will come... Oh, don't!

Half an hour later, he left the hut, took the horse into the yard, put it under a canopy, took off its bridle, gave it some wet, mown grass from a cart that stood in the middle of the yard, and returned, looking at the calm stars in the cleared sky. Faint, distant lightning still peeked into the hot darkness of the quiet hut from different directions. She lay on the bunk, all curled up, burying her head in her chest, crying hotly from horror, delight and the suddenness of what had happened. He kissed her wet cheek, salty from tears, lay down on his back and put her head on his shoulder, holding a cigarette with his right hand. She lay quietly, silently; he, smoking, gently and absentmindedly stroked her hair with his left hand, which tickled his chin... Then she immediately fell asleep. He lay there, looking into the darkness, and grinned smugly: “And daddy left for the city...” So they left for you! It’s bad, he’ll understand everything right away - such a lean and quick old man in a gray undershirt, a snow-white beard, but thick eyebrows still completely black, an unusually lively look, he talks incessantly when he’s drunk, but he sees right through everything...

He lay awake until the hour when the darkness of the hut began to lighten faintly in the middle, between the ceiling and the floor. Turning his head, he saw the east turning greenishly white outside the windows and could already discern in the darkness of the corner above the table a large image of a saint in church vestments, his raised blessing hand and an inexorably menacing gaze. He looked at her: she was lying there, still curled up, legs crossed, having forgotten everything in her sleep! Sweet and pathetic girl...

When it became completely light in the sky and the rooster began to crow in different voices behind the wall, he made a movement to rise. She jumped up and, half sitting sideways, with her chest unbuttoned and her hair tangled, stared at him with eyes that understood nothing.

“Styopa,” he said carefully. - I have to go.

-Are you on your way? – she whispered senselessly.

And suddenly she came to her senses and hit herself crosswise in the chest with her hands:

-Where are you going? How can I live without you now? What should I do now?

- Styopa, I’ll come again soon...

- But daddy will be at home - how can I see you! I would come to the forest beyond the highway, but how could I leave home?

He gritted his teeth and knocked her over. She spread her arms wide and exclaimed in sweet, as if dying despair: “Ah!”

Then he stood in front of the bunk, already in a vest, in a cap, with a whip in his hand, with his back to the windows, to the thick shine of the sun that had just appeared, and she stood on the bunk on her knees and, sobbing, childishly and uglyly opening her mouth, abruptly reprimanded:

- Vasil Likseich... for the sake of Christ... for the sake of the Heavenly King himself, marry me! I will be your last slave! I’ll sleep at your doorstep - take it! I would have left for you anyway, but who would let me in like that! Vasil Likseich...

“Shut up,” Krasilshchikov said sternly. “One of these days I’ll come to your father and tell him that I’m going to marry you.” Did you hear?

She sat down on her feet, immediately stopping her sobs, and stupidly opened her wet, radiant eyes:

- Is it true?

- Of course it's true.

“I’m already on my sixteenth day at Epiphany,” she said hastily.

- Well, that means we can get married in six months...

Returning home, he immediately began to get ready and in the evening he left in a troika for the railway. Two days later he was already in Kislovodsk.

Styopa

Before the evening, on the way to Chern, a young merchant

Krasilshchikov was caught in a downpour and thunderstorm.

He, in a tunic with a raised collar and a deep

the cap, from which streams flowed, rode very fast on the cross-country

droshky, sitting astride near the shield itself, firmly resting his feet

in high boots in the front axle, jerking wet, frozen

hands wet, slippery belt reins, hurrying the already

a frisky horse; to the left of it, near the front wheel,

spinning in a whole fountain of liquid mud, ran smoothly, long

sticking out his tongue, brown pointer.

At first Krasilshchikov drove along the black earth track along the highway,

then, when it turned into a solid gray stream with

bubbles, turned onto the highway, rattling along its fine gravel.

Neither the surrounding fields nor the sky were visible for a long time behind this

a flood smelling of cucumber freshness and phosphorus; before your eyes

every now and then, like a sign of the end of the world, blinding ruby

the fire burned sinuously from top to bottom along the great wall of clouds, sharp,

branched lightning, and a hissing tail flew overhead with a crash,

then torn apart by extraordinary in its crushing

force with blows. Every time the horse jerked forward from them,

with his ears flattened, the dog was already walking at a gallop... Krasilshchikov grew up and

studied in Moscow, graduated from the university there, but when I came

in the summer he loved to go to his Tula estate, which looked like a rich dacha

feel like a landowner-merchant who came from peasants, drank

Lafite and smoked from a gold cigarette case, and wore greased boots,

shirt and hoodie, was proud of his Russian article, and

now, in the downpour and roar, feeling how cold it is pouring from him

visor and nose, was full of the energetic pleasure of the village

life. This summer he often remembered the summer last year, when

because of his relationship with a famous actress, he suffered in Moscow

until July, before she left for Kislovodsk: idleness, heat,

hot stench and green smoke from blazing in iron vats

asphalt in the torn-up streets, breakfasts in Troitsky Nizok with

actors of the Maly Theater, who were also going to the Caucasus, then

sitting in Tremblay's coffee shop, waiting for her in the evening

apartment with furniture in covers, with chandeliers and paintings in muslin, with

the smell of mothballs... Summer Moscow evenings are endless,

It doesn’t get dark until eleven, and you wait and wait—she’s still not there.

Then finally the call - and she, in all her summer finery,

I was lying with a headache, your tea rose had completely withered, so

I was in a hurry, I took the reckless driver, I was terribly hungry..."

When the downpour and the shaking rolls of thunder began to subside,

move away and it began to become clearer, ahead, to the left of the highway,

the familiar inn of an old widower, a tradesman, appeared

Pronina. There were still twenty miles left to the city - it was necessary

wait, thought Krasilshchikov, the horse is all covered in soap and

no one knows what will happen again, look how black it is in that direction and

still lights up... At the crossing to the inn he

The trot turned and stopped near the wooden porch.

Grandfather! - he shouted loudly. - Receive a guest!

But the windows in the log house under the rusty iron roof were

dark, no one responded to the cry. The dyers got wrapped up in

the shield of the reins, climbed onto the porch after the one who jumped up there

dirty and wet dog - she looked mad, her eyes

shone brightly and meaninglessly, - he pulled his cap from his sweaty forehead,

He took off his coat, which was heavy with water, threw it on the porch railing and,

left in one undershirt with a belt in silver

set, wiped his face, mottled from dirty splashes, and began to clean

whip dirt from the tops. The door to the hallway was open, but

it felt like the house was empty. That's right, the cattle are being removed, he thought.

and, straightening up, looked into the field: should we go further? Evening

the air was still and damp, they beat vigorously in the distance from different sides

quail in bread weighed down with moisture, the rain stopped, but

night was approaching, the sky and earth were darkening gloomily, beyond the highway, beyond

low inky ridge of the forest, the cloud grew even thicker and darker,

the red flame flashed widely and ominously - and Krasilshchikov

He stepped into the hallway and fumbled in the darkness for the door to the upper room. But the upper room

it was dark and quiet, only somewhere a ruble watch was tapping

wall. He slammed the door, turned left, fumbled and opened

another, to the hut: again no one, just flies sleepily and dissatisfied

hummed in the hot darkness on the ceiling.

How they died! - he said out loud - and immediately heard

Nar Styopa, the owner’s daughter:

Is it you, Vasil Likseich? And I'm here alone, cook

had a fight with the broadswords and went home, and dad took the worker and

They went to town on business and are unlikely to return today... I got scared

thunderstorms to death, and then, I hear, someone drove up, even worse

I was scared... Hello, excuse me, please...

Krasilshchikov struck a match, illuminated her black eyes and

dark face:

Hello, fool. I'm going to the city too, yeah, see what

is being done, I stopped by to wait... And you, then, thought they were robbers

have you arrived?

The match began to burn out, but it was still visible in embarrassment

smiling face, coral necklace on the neck, small

breasts under a yellow cotton dress... She was almost double

shorter than him and seemed like just a girl.

“I’ll light the lamp now,” she said hastily,

embarrassed even more by Krasilshchikov’s watchful gaze, she rushed

to the light bulb above the table. - God himself sent you so that I would be here

did it alone,” she said melodiously, rising on tiptoe and

awkwardly pulling light bulbs from the jagged grille, from her tin

mug, glass.

Krasilschikov lit another match, looking at her stretched out

and a twisted figure.

Wait, don’t,” he suddenly said, throwing the match, and

took her by the waist. - Wait, turn to me for a minute...

She looked at him over her shoulder with fear, dropped her hands and

turned around. He pulled her towards him - she did not break away,

she just threw her head back wildly and in surprise. He's on top, straight

and looked firmly into her eyes through the darkness and laughed:

Are you even more scared?

Vasil Likseich...” she muttered pleadingly and

reached out from his hands.

Wait a minute. Don't you like me? Because I always know

I'm glad when I stop by.

There is no one better than you in the world,” she said quietly and

You see now...

He kissed her on the lips for a long time, and his hands slid

Vasil Likseich... for Christ's sake... You forgot, your

the horse remained under the porch... dad will come... Oh, no

Half an hour later he left the hut, took the horse into the yard,

put her under the shed, took off her bridle, gave her a wet

cut grass from a cart standing in the middle of the yard, and returned,

looking at the calm stars in the clearing sky. In hot weather

the darkness of the quiet hut was still peered from different sides by weak,

distant lightning. She lay on the bunk, all curled up,

head in the chest, crying hotly from horror, delight and

the suddenness of what happened. He kissed her wet

cheek salty from tears, lay down on his back and put her head towards him

on the shoulder, holding a cigarette with his right hand. She lay still

silently, he, smoking, affectionately and absently stroked her with his left hand

hair tickling his chin... Then she immediately fell asleep.

He lay looking into the darkness and grinned smugly: “And dad

they left for the city..." So they left for you! It’s bad, he did it all at once

will understand - such a dry and fast old man in gray

a little girl, a snow-white beard, and thick eyebrows

black, unusually lively gaze, speaks when drunk, without

silent, but sees right through everything...

He lay awake until the hour when the darkness of the hut became

lighten slightly in the middle, between the ceiling and floor. Turning

head, he saw the east turning greenish white outside the windows and already

in the darkness of the corner above the table I could make out a large image of a saint in

church vestments, his raised blessing hand and

an unyieldingly menacing gaze. He looked at her: she’s lying there, everything is fine

curled up, legs crossed, she forgot everything in her sleep! Sweet and pathetic

girl...

When it became completely light in the sky and the rooster crowed in different voices

began to yell behind the wall, he made a movement to get up. She

jumped up and, half sitting sideways, with her chest open,

with matted hair, staring at him, not understanding anything

Styopa,” he said carefully. -- I have to go.

Are you on your way? - she whispered senselessly.

And suddenly she came to her senses and hit herself in the chest crosswise

Where are you going? How can I live without you now? Well

what should I do now?

Styopa, I'll be back soon...

But daddy will be at home - how can I see you! I would

I came to the forest beyond the highway, but how can I leave home?

He gritted his teeth and knocked her over. She's wide

threw out her arms, exclaimed in sweet, as if dying

despair: "Ah!"

Then he stood in front of the bunk, already in a jacket, in a cap, with

whip in hand, back to the windows, to the thick shine of just

the sun appeared, and she stood on the bunk on her knees and,

sobbing, opening his mouth childishly and ugly, abruptly

reprimanded:

Vasil Likseich... for the sake of Christ... for the sake of the Tsar himself

heavenly, marry me! I'm your last slave

will! I’ll sleep at your doorstep - take it! I would come to you anyway

I left, but who will let me go like that! Vasil Likseich...

Shut up,” Krasilshchikov said sternly. -- The other day

I will come to your father and tell you that I will marry you. Did you hear?

She sat down on her feet, immediately stopping her sobs, and stupidly opened her

wet radiant eyes:

Is it true?

Of course it's true.

I already went to Epiphany on the sixteenth day - hastily

she said.

Well, that means we can get married in six months...

Returning home, he immediately began to get ready and left in the evening.

on the troika to the railway. Two days later he was already in

Kislovodsk.

Before the evening, on the way to Chern, a young merchant
Krasilshchikov was caught in a downpour and thunderstorm.
He, in a tunic with a raised collar and a deep
the cap, from which streams flowed, rode very fast on the cross-country
droshky, sitting astride near the shield itself, firmly resting his feet
in high boots in the front axle, jerking wet, frozen
hands wet, slippery belt reins, hurrying the already
a frisky horse; to the left of it, near the front wheel,
spinning in a whole fountain of liquid mud, ran smoothly, long
sticking out his tongue, brown pointer.
At first Krasilshchikov drove along the black earth track along the highway,
then, when it turned into a solid gray stream with
bubbles, turned onto the highway, rattling along its fine gravel.
Neither the surrounding fields nor the sky were visible for a long time behind this
a flood smelling of cucumber freshness and phosphorus; before your eyes
every now and then, like a sign of the end of the world, blinding ruby
the fire burned sinuously from top to bottom along the great wall of clouds, sharp,
branched lightning, and a hissing tail flew overhead with a crash,
then torn apart by extraordinary in its crushing
force with blows. Every time the horse jerked forward from them,
with his ears flattened, the dog was already walking at a gallop... Krasilshchikov grew up and
studied in Moscow, graduated from the university there, but when I came
in the summer he loved to go to his Tula estate, which looked like a rich dacha
feel like a landowner-merchant who came from peasants, drank
Lafite and smoked from a gold cigarette case, and wore greased boots,
shirt and hoodie, was proud of his Russian article, and
now, in the downpour and roar, feeling how cold it is pouring from him
visor and nose, was full of the energetic pleasure of the village
life. This summer he often remembered the summer last year, when
because of his relationship with a famous actress, he suffered in Moscow
until July, before she left for Kislovodsk: idleness, heat,
hot stench and green smoke from blazing in iron vats
asphalt in the torn-up streets, breakfasts in Troitsky Nizok with
actors of the Maly Theater, who were also going to the Caucasus, then
sitting in Tremblay's coffee shop, waiting for her in the evening
apartment with furniture in covers, with chandeliers and paintings in muslin, with
the smell of mothballs... Summer Moscow evenings are endless,
It doesn’t get dark until eleven, and you wait and wait—she’s still not there.
Then finally the call - and she, in all her summer finery,
and her gasping voice: “Please forgive me, I’ve been lying in bed all day
I was lying with a headache, your tea rose had completely withered, so
I was in a hurry, I took the reckless driver, I was terribly hungry..."
When the downpour and the shaking rolls of thunder began to subside,
move away and it began to become clearer, ahead, to the left of the highway,
the familiar inn of an old widower, a tradesman, appeared
Pronina. There were still twenty miles left to the city - it was necessary
wait, thought Krasilshchikov, the horse is all covered in soap and
no one knows what will happen again, look how black it is in that direction and
still lights up... At the crossing to the inn he
The trot turned and stopped near the wooden porch.
- Grandfather! - he shouted loudly. - Receive a guest!
But the windows in the log house under the rusty iron roof were
dark, no one responded to the cry. The dyers got wrapped up in
the shield of the reins, climbed onto the porch after the one who jumped up there
dirty and wet dog - she looked mad, her eyes
shone brightly and meaninglessly, - he pulled his cap from his sweaty forehead,
He took off his coat, which was heavy with water, threw it on the porch railing and,
left in one undershirt with a belt in silver
set, wiped his face, mottled from dirty splashes, and began to clean
whip dirt from the tops. The door to the hallway was open, but
it felt like the house was empty. That's right, the cattle are being removed, he thought.
and, straightening up, looked into the field: should we go further? Evening
the air was still and damp, they beat vigorously in the distance from different sides
quail in bread weighed down with moisture, the rain stopped, but
night was approaching, the sky and earth were darkening gloomily, beyond the highway, beyond
low inky ridge of the forest, the cloud grew even thicker and darker,
the red flame flashed widely and ominously - and Krasilshchikov
He stepped into the hallway and fumbled in the darkness for the door to the upper room. But the upper room
it was dark and quiet, only somewhere a ruble watch was tapping
wall. He slammed the door, turned left, fumbled and opened
another, to the hut: again no one, just flies sleepily and dissatisfied
hummed in the hot darkness on the ceiling.
- How they died! - he said out loud - and immediately heard
the quick and melodious, half-childish voice of a woman who slipped into the darkness
Nar Styopa, the owner’s daughter:
- Is it you, Vasil Likseich? And I'm here alone, cook
had a fight with the broadswords and went home, and dad took the worker and
They went to town on business and are unlikely to return today... I got scared
thunderstorms to death, and then, I hear, someone drove up, even worse
I was scared... Hello, excuse me, please...
Krasilshchikov struck a match, illuminated her black eyes and
dark face:
- Hello, fool. I'm going to the city too, yeah, see what
is being done, I stopped by to wait... And you, then, thought they were robbers
have you arrived?
The match began to burn out, but it was still visible in embarrassment
smiling face, coral necklace on the neck, small
breasts under a yellow cotton dress... She was almost double
shorter than him and seemed like just a girl.
“I’ll light the lamp now,” she said hastily,
embarrassed even more by Krasilshchikov’s watchful gaze, she rushed
to the light bulb above the table. - God himself sent you so that I would be here
did it alone,” she said melodiously, rising on tiptoe and
awkwardly pulling light bulbs from the jagged grille, from her tin
mug, glass.
Krasilschikov lit another match, looking at her stretched out
and a twisted figure.
“Wait, don’t,” he suddenly said, throwing the match and
took her by the waist. - Wait, turn to me for a minute...
She looked at him over her shoulder with fear, dropped her hands and
turned around. He pulled her towards him - she did not break away,
she just threw her head back wildly and in surprise. He's on top, straight
and looked firmly into her eyes through the darkness and laughed:
-Are you even more frightened?
“Vasil Likseich...” she muttered pleadingly and
reached out from his hands.
-- Wait a minute. Don't you like me? Because I always know
I'm glad when I stop by.
“There is no one better than you in the world,” she said quietly and
hot.
-- You see now...
He kissed her on the lips for a long time, and his hands slid
below.
- Vasil Likseich... for Christ's sake... You forgot, your
the horse remained under the porch... dad will come... Oh, no
necessary!
Half an hour later he left the hut, took the horse into the yard,
put her under the shed, took off her bridle, gave her a wet
cut grass from a cart standing in the middle of the yard, and returned,
looking at the calm stars in the clearing sky. In hot weather
the darkness of the quiet hut was still peered from different sides by weak,
distant lightning. She lay on the bunk, all curled up,
head in the chest, crying hotly from horror, delight and
the suddenness of what happened. He kissed her wet
cheek salty from tears, lay down on his back and put her head towards him
on the shoulder, holding a cigarette with his right hand. She lay still
silently, he, smoking, affectionately and absently stroked her with his left hand
hair tickling his chin... Then she immediately fell asleep.
He lay looking into the darkness and grinned smugly: “And dad
they left for the city..." So they left for you! It’s bad, he did it all at once
will understand - such a dry and fast old man in gray
a little girl, a snow-white beard, and thick eyebrows
black, unusually lively gaze, speaks when drunk, without
silent, but sees right through everything...
He lay awake until the hour when the darkness of the hut became
lighten slightly in the middle, between the ceiling and floor. Turning
head, he saw the east turning greenish white outside the windows and already
in the darkness of the corner above the table I could make out a large image of a saint in
church vestments, his raised blessing hand and
an unyieldingly menacing gaze. He looked at her: she’s lying there, everything is fine
curled up, legs crossed, she forgot everything in her sleep! Sweet and pathetic
girl...
When it became completely light in the sky and the rooster crowed in different voices
began to yell behind the wall, he made a movement to get up. She
jumped up and, half sitting sideways, with her chest open,
with matted hair, staring at him, not understanding anything
eyes.
“Styopa,” he said carefully. -- I have to go.
-Are you on your way? - she whispered senselessly.
And suddenly she came to her senses and hit herself in the chest crosswise
hands:
-Where are you going? How can I live without you now? Well
what should I do now?
- Styopa, I’ll come again soon...
- But daddy will be at home - how can I see you! I would
I came to the forest beyond the highway, but how can I leave home?
He gritted his teeth and knocked her over. She's wide
threw out her arms, exclaimed in sweet, as if dying
despair: "Ah!"
Then he stood in front of the bunk, already in a jacket, in a cap, with
whip in hand, back to the windows, to the thick shine of just
the sun appeared, and she stood on the bunk on her knees and,
sobbing, opening his mouth childishly and ugly, abruptly
reprimanded:
- Vasil Likseich... for the sake of Christ... for the sake of the Tsar himself
heavenly, marry me! I'm your last slave
will! I’ll sleep at your doorstep - take it! I would come to you anyway
I left, but who will let me go like that! Vasil Likseich...
“Shut up,” Krasilshchikov said sternly. -- The other day
I will come to your father and tell you that I will marry you. Did you hear?
She sat down on her feet, immediately stopping her sobs, and stupidly opened her
wet radiant eyes:
-- Is it true?
-- Of course it's true.
“I’m already on my sixteenth day at Epiphany,” he said quickly.
she said.
- Well, that means we can get married in six months...
Returning home, he immediately began to get ready and left in the evening.
on the troika to the railway. Two days later he was already in
Kislovodsk.
October 5, 1938

I was no longer young then, but I decided to study
painting - I have always had a passion for it - and, having given up
his estate in the Tambov province, spent the winter in Moscow: he took
lessons from one mediocre, but quite famous artist,
an unkempt fat man who has perfectly mastered everything that
expected: long hair, thrown back in large greasy curls
back, pipe in teeth, velvet garnet jacket, on shoes
dirty gray leggings - I especially hated them - carelessness
in circulation, condescending glances with narrowed eyes
for the student’s work and it’s as if to himself:
- Interesting, interesting... Undoubted success...
I lived on Arbat, next to the Prague restaurant, in rooms
"Capital". During the day he worked at the artist’s house and at home, often in the evenings
spent in cheap restaurants with various new acquaintances from
bohemians, both young and shabby, but equally committed
billiards and crayfish with beer... My life was unpleasant and boring! This
effeminate, unscrupulous artist, his "artistically"
a neglected workshop littered with all sorts of dusty props,
this gloomy “Capital”... Remains in my memory: it constantly pours
there is snow outside the windows, horse-drawn trams are ringing dully along the Arbat, in the evening
the sour stink of beer and gas in the dimly lit restaurant... Not
I understand why I led such a miserable existence - I was
then far from poor.
But then one day in March, when I was sitting at home working
pencils, and the air was no longer wafting through the open windows of the double frames.
winter dampness of sleet and rain, an unwinterly clicking sound
horseshoe pavement and as if the horse-drawn horses were ringing more musically, someone
knocked on my hallway door. I shouted: who is there? -- But
there was no answer. I waited, shouted again - again
silence, then another knock. I got up and opened the door: standing at the threshold
a tall girl in a gray winter hat, in a gray straight coat, in
gray boots, staring straight ahead, acorn-colored eyes, long
raindrops glisten on your eyelashes, on your face and on your hair under your hat
and snow; looks and says:
- I am a conservative, Muse Graf. I heard that you are interesting
man, and came to meet. Do you have anything against it?
Quite surprised, I responded, of course, politely:
- I’m very flattered, you’re welcome. I just have to
to warn that the rumors that have reached you are unlikely to be correct:
There seems to be nothing interesting about me.
- Anyway, let me in, don't hold me back
in front of the door,” she said, still looking straight at me.
- We're flattered, so accept it.
And, having entered, she began, as if at home, to take pictures in front of my
a gray-silver hat, blackened in places by a mirror,
straighten her rusty hair, took off her coat and threw it on a chair,
remaining in a checkered flannel dress, she sat down on the sofa, sniffling
nose wet from snow and rain, and ordered:
- Take off my boots and give me a handkerchief from my coat.
I handed her a handkerchief, she wiped herself off and held out her feet to me.
“I saw you yesterday at Shor’s concert,” indifferently
she said.
Holding back a stupid smile of pleasure and bewilderment, - what
what a strange guest! - I obediently took off my boots one by one. From
The air still smelled fresh, and I was worried about this smell,
worried about the connection of her masculinity with all that
feminine-youthful, which was in her face, in her straight eyes, in
large and beautiful hand - in everything that he looked and felt
I, pulling off the boots from under her dress, under which it was round and
her knees lay fully, seeing her bulging calves in thin gray
stockings and elongated feet in open patent leather shoes.
Then she sat down comfortably on the sofa, apparently preparing to
not leaving soon. Not knowing what to say, I started asking questions,
from whom and what did she hear about me and who she is, where and with whom
lives. She answered.
- From whom and what I heard, it doesn’t matter. I went more because
what I saw at the concert. You are quite beautiful. And I'm a doctor's daughter,
I live not far from you, on Prechistensky Boulevard.
She spoke somehow unexpectedly and briefly. Again, I don't know
What can I say, he asked:
- Do you want some tea?
“I want to,” she said. - And order if you have
It won’t hurt to buy apples from Belov, here on the Arbat. Only
hurry up the bellhop, I'm impatient.
- And you seem so calm.
- You never know what it seems...
When the bellhop brought the samovar and a bag of apples, she
I made tea, polished cups, spoons...
And after eating an apple and drinking a cup of tea, she moved deeper into the
sofa and patted her hand next to her:
- Now sit with me.
I sat down, she hugged me, slowly kissed me on the lips,
pulled back, looked and, as if convinced that I was worthy
She closed her eyes and kissed him again - diligently, for a long time.
“Well,” she said, as if relieved. -- More
nothing is possible yet. Day after tomorrow.
It was already completely dark in the room - only a sad
half-light from street lamps. What I felt was easy for myself
introduce. Where does all of a sudden such happiness come from! Young, strong, taste
and the shape of the lips is extraordinary... As if in a dream, I heard the monotonous
the ringing of horses, the clatter of hooves...
“I want to have lunch with you at Prague the day after tomorrow,”
she said. “I’ve never been there and I’m generally very inexperienced.”
I imagine what you think about me. But in fact you are mine
first love.
-- Love?
- What else is it called?
Of course, I soon abandoned my studies, but she continued hers.
somehow. We never parted, we lived like newlyweds, we walked around
art galleries, exhibitions, listened to concerts and even
for some reason public lectures... In May I moved, according to her
desire, to an old estate near Moscow, where they were set up and
small dachas were rented out, and she began to come to me,
returning to Moscow at one in the morning. I never expected this either...
dachas near Moscow: I have never lived as a summer resident, without any
business, in an estate so different from our steppe estates, and in
such a climate.
It rains all the time, there are pine forests all around. Every now and then in the bright
white clouds accumulate above them in the blue, rolling high
thunder, then a brilliant rain begins to fall through the sun,
quickly turning from the heat into fragrant pine steam... All
wet, greasy, mirror-like... In the estate park the trees were so
so large that the dachas built here and there seemed to be underneath them
small, like dwellings under trees in tropical countries. Pond
stood like a huge black mirror, half covered in green
duckweed... I lived on the outskirts of the park, in the forest. My log cottage
was not completely completed - uncaulked walls, unplaned
floors, stoves without dampers, almost no furniture. And from constant
dampness, my boots, lying under the bed, were covered with velvet
mold.
It got dark in the evenings only at midnight: it stands and stands
half-light of the west through motionless, quiet forests. On moonlit nights this
the half-light mixed strangely with the moonlight, also motionless,
enchanted. And by the calm that reigned everywhere, by
the purity of the sky and air, it seemed as if there was no more rain
will. But then I fell asleep, walking her to the station, and suddenly
I heard: the rain with thunderclaps is falling on the roof again,
There is darkness all around and lightning is falling vertically... In the morning on the purple ground
the damp alleys were full of shadows and dazzling spots of sun,
the birds called flycatchers were clicking, and the blackbirds were croaking hoarsely. TO
By midday it was floating again, clouds appeared and rain began to fall.
Before sunset it became clear on my log walls
trembled, falling into the windows through the foliage, the crystal-golden mesh
low sun. Then I went to the station to meet her. Approached
train, countless summer residents were pouring out onto the platform, it smelled
coal steam locomotive and the damp freshness of the forest, appeared in
to the crowd she, with a net laden with bags of snacks, fruits,
a bottle of Madeira... We dined face to face. In front of her
After leaving late, we wandered around the park. She was becoming
somnambulistic, she walked, bowing her head on my shoulder. Black Pond,
centuries-old trees stretching into the starry sky...
An enchanted bright night, endlessly silent, with
endlessly long shadows of trees on silver glades,
like lakes.
In June she went with me to my village - without getting married,
began to live with me as a wife, began to manage the house. long autumn
spent without getting bored, in everyday worries, reading. From the neighbors
most often a certain Zavistovsky visited us, lonely, poor
a landowner who lived about two miles from us, a frail, red-haired man,
timid, narrow-minded - and not a bad musician. In winter he became
appear with us almost every evening. I knew him since childhood
Now I’m so used to him that the evening without him was
strange. We played checkers with him or he played with her at four
hands on the piano.
Before Christmas I once went to the city. Already returned
under the moon. And, entering the house, he did not find her anywhere. Sat down at the samovar
one.
- Where is the lady, Dunya? Did you go for a walk?
- I don’t know, sir. They haven't been home since breakfast.
“Get dressed and leave,” she said gloomily, walking along
dining room and without raising his head, my old nanny.
“That’s right, I went to Zavistovsky,” I thought, “that’s right,
will soon come with him - it’s already seven o’clock...” And I went and
I lay down in the office and suddenly fell asleep - I had been freezing all day on the road.
And just as suddenly I woke up an hour later - with a clear and wild thought:
“But she left me! She hired a man in the village and left for
station, to Moscow - everything will happen from it! But maybe,
came back?" I walked around the house - no, she didn't come back. I'm ashamed
servants...
At about ten o'clock, not knowing what to do, I put on a sheepskin coat,
for some reason he took a gun and walked along the high road to Zavistovsky,
thinking: “As if on purpose, he didn’t come today, and I still have a whole
a terrible night lies ahead! Has she really left and abandoned her? Not really,
It can’t be!” I walk, creaking along the well-worn path among the snow,
Snowy fields sparkle on the left under the low, poor moon... Turned off
from the main road, went to the Zavistovsky estate: the alley of naked
trees, leading to it across the field, then the entrance to the yard, on the left
old, poor house, the house is dark... I climbed onto the icy
porch, with difficulty opened the heavy door in shreds of upholstery, - into
the hallway is reddened by an open burnt out stove, warmth and
darkness... But it’s dark in the hall too.
- Vikenty Vikentich!
And he silently, in felt boots, appeared on the threshold of the office,
also illuminated only by the moon through the triple window.
- Oh, it’s you... Come in, come in, please... And I, how
you see, I’m at dusk, whileing away the evening without a fire...
I walked in and sat down on the lumpy sofa.
-- Imagine. The muse has disappeared somewhere...
He said nothing. Then in an almost inaudible voice:
- Yes, yes, I understand you...
- That is, what do you understand?
And immediately, also silently, also in felt boots, with a shawl on
shoulders, Muse came out of the bedroom adjacent to the office.
“You have a gun,” she said. - If you want to shoot,
then shoot not at him, but at me.
And she sat down on the other sofa, opposite.
I looked at her felt boots, at her knees under her gray skirt, -
everything was clearly visible in the golden light falling from the window -
wanted to shout: “I can’t live without you, for these knees alone,
I’m ready to give my life for a skirt, for felt boots!”
“The matter is clear and over,” she said. -- Scenes
useless.
“You are monstrously cruel,” I said with difficulty.
“Give me a cigarette,” she said to Zavistovsky.
He cowardly leaned towards her, handed her a cigarette case, stood
pockets to search for matches...
“You’re already speaking to me using ‘you’,” he said, breathless.
I, - you could at least not speak to him on a first-name basis in front of me.
-- Why? - she asked, raising her eyebrows, holding her back
cigarette.
My heart was already pounding in my throat, beating in my temples.
I stood up and staggered out.
October 17, 1938

LATE HOUR

Oh, it’s been so long since I’ve been there, I said to myself. Since nineteen
years. I once lived in Russia, felt it was my own, had a complete
freedom to travel anywhere, and there was no great difficulty in traveling
some three hundred miles. But I didn’t go, I kept putting it off. And they walked
and years and decades passed. But now it’s no longer possible
postpone: either now or never. Must use
the only and last case, fortunately the hour was late and no one
will meet me.
And I walked across the bridge over the river, seeing everything around me in the distance.
in the monthly light of the July night.
The bridge was so familiar, the same, as if I had seen it yesterday:
roughly ancient, hunchbacked and as if not even made of stone, but
some kind of petrified from time to eternal indestructibility, -
As a high school student, I thought that he was still under Batu. However, about
only some traces of the city walls speak about the antiquity of the city
on the cliff under the cathedral and this bridge. Everything else is old
provincial, nothing more. One was strange, one indicated that
after all, something has changed in the world since I was
a boy, a young man: before the river was not navigable, but now it is
true, deepened, cleared; the month was to my left, quite
far above the river, and in its unsteady light and in the flickering, trembling
the paddle steamer, which seemed empty, was white in the shine of the water -
he was so silent, although all his portholes were
illuminated, like motionless golden eyes and everything was reflected
in the water like flowing golden pillars: the steamer is exactly on them and
stood. This happened in Yaroslavl, and in the Suez Canal, and on the Nile. IN
Paris nights are damp, dark, the hazy glow turns pink
impenetrable sky, the Seine flows under the bridges with black tar, but under
they also hang flowing columns of reflections from the lanterns on
bridges, only they are three colors: white, blue and red -
Russian national flags. There are no lights on the bridge here, and he
dry and dusty. And ahead, on the hill, the city darkens with gardens,
A fire tower sticks out over the gardens. My God, what a experience it was.
unspeakable happiness! This was during a night fire for the first time
kissed your hand and you squeezed mine in response - I will never
I will forget this secret agreement. The whole street was black with people
an ominous, unusual insight. I was visiting you when suddenly
the alarm sounded and everyone rushed to the windows, and then behind the gate. It was burning
far away, across the river, but terribly hot, greedily, urgently. It's thick there
clouds of smoke poured out like black-purple fleeces, bursting high from
they are crimson sheets of flame, close to us they are trembling,
copper gleamed in the dome of the Archangel Michael. And in cramped conditions
crowd, among the alarming, then pitiful, then joyful talk
from everywhere the common people came running, I heard the smell of your
girl's hair, neck, canvas dress - and then suddenly
I made up my mind and took your hand, completely frozen...
Beyond the bridge I climbed the hill, walked into the paved city
Expensive.
There was not a single fire anywhere in the city, not a single living
souls. Everything was silent and spacious, calm and sad - sadness
Russian steppe night, sleeping steppe city. Some gardens
You can hear the leaves carefully fluttering from the steady current of a weak
the July wind, which came from somewhere from the fields, blew gently
on me. I was walking... big month also walked, rolling and through
the blackness of the branches like a mirror circle; wide streets lay in the shadows
- only in the houses to the right, which the shadow did not reach,
the white walls were illuminated and shimmered with a mournful gloss
black glasses; and I walked in the shadows, walked along the spotted sidewalk,
- it was see-throughly covered with black silk lace. She has
it was so Evening Dress, very elegant, long and slender.
It suited her slim figure and black young
eyes. She was mysterious in him and did not insult
pay attention to me. Where was it? Visiting who?
My goal was to visit Old Street. AND
I could have gone there by another, closer route. But that's why I turned into
these spacious streets in the gardens that I wanted to look at the gymnasium.
And, having reached it, he marveled again: and here everything remained the same as
half a century ago; stone fence, stone courtyard, large stone
the building in the courtyard is still as official and boring as it was
once upon a time, with me. I paused at the gate, I wanted to evoke in myself
sadness, pity of memories - and could not: yes, I entered into these
first-grader with a buzz cut in a new one
blue cap with silver palms above the visor and in a new
an overcoat with silver buttons, then a thin young man in gray
a jacket and smart trousers with straps; but is it me?
The old street seemed to me only a little narrower than
seemed before. Everything else was unchanged. Bumpy pavement
not a single tree, dusty merchant houses on both sides,
the sidewalks are also bumpy, so much so that it’s better to walk in the middle of the street,
in full monthly light... And the night was almost the same as that one.
Only that one was at the end of August, when the whole city smells
apples that lie in mountains in the markets, and it’s so warm that
It was a pleasure to walk in one blouse, belted
Caucasian strap... Is it possible to remember this night somewhere out there,
as if in the sky?
I still didn’t dare go to your house. And he, right,
has not changed, but it is all the more terrible to see him. Some strangers
new people live in it now. Your father, your mother, your brother
- everyone outlived you, the young one, but they also died in due time. Yes and
Everyone died for me; and not only relatives, but also many, many, with
with whom I, in friendship or friendship, began life; how long ago
they too began, confident that there would be no end to it, but all
began, flowed and ended before my eyes - so quickly
and before my eyes! And I sat down on a pedestal near some merchant
house, impregnable behind its castles and gates, and became
to think what she was like in those distant times, our times: just
removed dark hair, clear eyes, light tan of a young face,
light summer a dress under which purity, strength and
freedom of a young body... This was the beginning of our love, time
unclouded happiness, intimacy, trustfulness,
enthusiastic tenderness, joy...
There is something very special about the warm and bright nights of Russians.
county towns at the end of summer. What peace, what prosperity!
An old man with a mallet wanders through the cheerful city at night, but
only for your own pleasure: there is nothing to guard, sleep
calmly, good people, God's favor will be with you, this
the high shining sky, at which the old man looks carefree,
wandering along the pavement heated during the day and only occasionally, for
fun, starting a dance trill with a mallet. And on a night like this,
at that late hour, when only he was awake in the city, you
was waiting for me in your garden, already dry by autumn, and I secretly
slipped into it: quietly opened the gate, previously unlocked
you, quietly and quickly ran across the yard and behind the barn in the back
courtyard entered the motley gloom of the garden, where faintly white in the distance, on
a bench under the apple trees, your dress, and, quickly approaching, with
I met the sparkle of your waiting eyes with joyful fear.
And we sat, sat in some kind of bewilderment of happiness. One
I hugged you with my hand, hearing your heartbeat, with the other
held your hand, feeling all of you through it. And it was already like that
so late that you couldn't even hear the beater - he lay down somewhere
on a bench and dozed off with a pipe in his teeth, basking in
monthly light. When I looked to the right, I saw how high and
the moon shines sinlessly over the yard and the roof glistens like a fish
Houses. When I looked to the left, I saw overgrown with dry herbs
a path that disappeared under other apple trees, and behind them low
peeking out from behind some other garden, a lonely green
a star that glowed dispassionately and at the same time expectantly,
silently saying something. But I only saw the yard and the star
glimpse - there was one thing in the world: light dusk and radiant flicker
your eyes in the twilight.
And then you walked me to the gate, and I said:
-- If there future life and we will meet in it, I will become
there on my knees and I will kiss your feet for everything you gave me
earth.
I went out into the middle of the bright street and went to my
courtyard Turning around, I saw that everything was still white at the gate.
Now, having risen from the pedestal, I went back the same way,
how he came. No, I had, except Old street, and another
a goal that I was afraid to admit to myself, but fulfillment
which I knew was inevitable. And I went - take a look and leave
forever now.
The road was familiar again. Everything straight, then left, along
to the bazaar, and from the bazaar - along Monastyrskaya - to the exit from the city.
The bazaar is like another city within the city. Very smelly rows. IN
Glutton row, under awnings over long tables and benches,
gloomy. In Skobyany an icon hangs on a chain above the middle of the aisle
big-eyed Savior in a rusty frame. In Muchnoye always in the morning
A whole flock of pigeons ran and pecked along the pavement. Go to
gymnasium - how many of them! And all fat, with rainbow goiters -
peck and run, feminine, pinch-wiggling, swaying,
twitching their heads monotonously, as if not noticing you:
take off, whistling with their wings, only when they almost
you will step on one of them. And at night here quickly and
Large dark rats, disgusting and scary, were rushing around anxiously.
Monastyrskaya street - span into fields and road: one of
cities home, to the village, others - to City of dead. In Paris
for two days the house number such and such on such and such a street is allocated
all other houses with the plague props of the entrance, its funeral with
framed in silver, lies in the entrance to the funeral for two days
cover of the table a sheet of paper with a mourning border - on it
polite visitors sign as a sign of sympathy; then, in
some deadline, a huge one stops at the entrance, with
a mourning canopy, a chariot whose wood is black and resinous,
like a plague coffin, rounded carved canopy floors
indicate the heavens with large white stars, and the corners
the roofs are crowned with curly black plumes - ostrich feathers
from the underworld; the chariot is harnessed to tall monsters in coal
horned blankets with white eye socket rings; on indefinitely
the old drunkard sits on the high sawhorse and waits to be taken out, too
symbolically dressed in a fake grave uniform and the same
triangular hat, must always be grinning internally
to these solemn words! "Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine,
et lux perpetua luceat eis"1. -- Everything is different here. It blows from the fields
along the Monastyrskaya breeze, and are carried towards him on towels
open coffin, a rice face with a motley corolla is swaying
forehead, above closed convex eyelids. So they carried her too.
At the exit, to the left of the highway, a monastery from the time of Alexei
Mikhailovich, serfs, always closed gates and serfs
walls from behind which the gilded turnips of the cathedral shine. Further,
completely in the field, a very spacious square of other walls, but
low: they contain a whole grove, broken up by intersecting
long avenues, on the sides of which, under the old elms,
linden and birch trees, all dotted with various crosses and
monuments. Then the gates were wide open, and I saw
the main avenue, smooth, endless. I timidly took off my hat and
has entered. How late and how dumb! The month has already stood behind the trees
low, but everything around, as far as the eye could see, was still clear
it is seen. The entire space of this grove of the dead, crosses and monuments
it was patterned in a transparent shadow. The wind died down to
before dawn - bright and dark spots, all colorful
slept under the trees. In the distance of the grove, from behind the cemetery church,
suddenly something flashed and with furious speed, a dark ball
rushed towards me - I, beside myself, shied away to the side, all
my head immediately froze and tightened, my heart rushed and
froze... What was that? It flashed and disappeared. But the heart is in
the chest remained standing. And so, with my heart stopping,
Carrying it within me like a heavy cup, I moved on. I knew,
where to go, I kept walking straight along the avenue - and at the very end
he stopped, already a few steps from the back wall:
in front of me, on level ground, among the dry grasses, lay lonely
an elongated and rather narrow stone, with its head facing the wall. Because of
a low green star looked at the walls like a wondrous gem,
radiant, like the old one, but dumb, motionless.
October 19, 1938