Vladimir Korolenko “In a bad society. "In bad company

“In a Bad Society” is a famous story by V.G. Korolenko, also known under another name - “Children of the Dungeon”. The work was written from the perspective of Vasya, a seven-year-old boy, talking about his life, impressions and experiences gained while communicating with people from “bad society” with whom he became friends and whom he sincerely loved.

Vasya could not be called a bad boy.

His mother died early, and his father was so consumed by grief that he stopped paying attention to his son. It even seemed to the boy that his father had stopped loving him altogether. That's why Vasya wanted to run away from home,

Every morning he left home at dawn so as not to meet his father. The family had long become accustomed to the boy’s constant absence and began to call him a tramp and a scoundrel. The father also got used to this idea and could no longer imagine his son in any other way. And Vasya suffered from the fact that he was lonely, he loved his sister very much, but he was not allowed to see her. It seemed to Vasya that he would find salvation from loneliness on the street. And he went there, to the street. And this road could lead him to goodness and truth.

The boy met two children in the old chapel - Valek and Marusya. This acquaintance had a great influence on the hero’s entire future life. Vasya became imbued with love for these unfortunate children. He loved to talk with Valek, who resembled an adult with his solidity and manners that inspired respect. Marusya was a sad, weak girl who, although she was the same age as his sister Sonya, was so different from her playful and plump sister. The boy brought Marusa gifts and tried to please her. Vasya was sincerely sorry for the girl from whom the life was being sucked out by the gray stone. New friends helped Vasya learn about those aspects of life that were hidden from him before. When he found out that Valek and his father Tyburtsy had to steal in order to survive and not die of hunger, he cried all night.

The children of the dungeon made Vasya look at the world around him differently. He also looked at his father in a new way, hearing from Valek and Tyburtsiy that they consider his father the best man in the city, since he does not see the difference between the rich and the poor. Marusya taught Vasya patience and compassion. She quickly got tired of the boy's cheerful games and began to cry. And Vasya was painfully sorry for the girl. The Tyburtsia family became dear to our hero. He promised that he would not say a word to anyone about his friends. And he kept his word. When Marusya was sick, Vasya asked his sister Sonya for a doll given to her by her mother, the only reminder of her. He took this doll to Marusya, for whom the toy became the last ray of joy in her short life. But the boy took the doll from the house without the permission of adults, which is why his father was very angry. However, Vasya did not admit why he took the doll, even under the stern gaze of his father. The father learned the whole story from Tyburtsy and realized that his son was a kind and sympathetic boy, and not at all a tramp and a thief.

Vasya has come a long way towards goodness and truth. Thanks to friendships with people from “bad society,” he became a kind and generous person who knows how to deeply feel and compassion.

Effective preparation for the Unified State Exam (all subjects) -

He had a reputation as a “stander” for truth, a defender of the downtrodden, the poor and the persecuted. Korolenko had similar life positions and literary manifestations with some writers (contemporaries). He was a fighter for truth, like L.N. Tolstoy (Fig. 2).

Rice. 2. L.N. Tolstoy ()

He depicted Russian life (including provincial life) without embellishment and idealization, often wrote about the unpleasant, bitter, repulsive, like A.P. Chekhov (Fig. 3).

Rice. 3. A.P. Chekhov ()

Like M. Gorky (Fig. 4), he wrote about people of the social “bottom”, about a rather unpresentable, from the point of view of society, public, which aroused hostility and disgust among respectable people.

Rice. 4. M. Gorky ()

It was to such people that Korolenko devoted a lot of attention in his work.

The story “In Bad Society” is a kind of calling card of the writer, just like the story “The Blind Musician.” This is a story about people of the so-called “bad society”.

The story “In Bad Society” was written in Yakut exile. Korolenko participated in the public anti-government movement. For this he was arrested, and he spent several years in exile and prison. A story was written in cold Yakutia, the action of which takes place in the southern region of the Russian Empire. This is a kind of conditional town of Princely Vienna. But Korolenko himself said that he brought into this narrative the features of his childhood, what he saw in the life around him.

Korolenko spent his childhood in two cities of western Ukraine - Zhitomir and Rivne (Fig. 5).

Rice. 5. The house where V. G. Korolenko spent his childhood ()

We see a collective image of these cities in this book, in its first chapter: a sleepy, provincial, remote town, whose population consists mainly of Ukrainians, Jews and Poles. This is a city where nothing happens and life drags on drearily.

One of the most remarkable people in this city is the narrator's father, a judge. It is interesting that Korolenko’s own father was a magistrate. He was a very honest, incorruptible, wonderful person who was loved in the city. When his father died (Korolenko was 15 years old), a line of poor people followed his coffin. Some traits of Korolenko’s father are present in the character of the narrator’s father in the story “In Bad Society.”

The narrator on whose behalf the story is told is a six-year-old boy Vasya, the son of a judge. Read the first lines of the story (Fig. 6):

“My mother died when I was six years old. My father, completely absorbed in his grief, seemed to completely forget about my existence. At times he would caress my little sister and take care of her in his own way, because she had her mother’s traits. I grew up like a wild tree in a field - no one surrounded me with special care, but no one constrained my freedom.”

Rice. 6. Vasya and father ()

We see the town through the eyes of this very boy. This town is boring, there is nothing interesting in it, except for two places - ruins: this is the count's castle and an old abandoned chapel.

Please note that the first chapter of the story is called “Ruins”, which puts you in a romantic mood. Ruins, dilapidated buildings - all of this exudes the spirit of antiquity and romance. In romantic literature of the early 19th century, if we are talking about ruins, then most likely it will be something poetic, frightening, some kind of secret (Fig. 7). And indeed, she soon appears in the story.

Rice. 7. Castle ruins ()

Children love the scary and mysterious. The children from this story (Vasya's comrades) go to look at the old castle, admire the ruins, which both attract and frighten them.

“... even on clear days, when, encouraged by the light and loud voices of birds, we came closer to him, he often brought on us fits of panic horror - the black hollows of the long-broken windows looked so scary; There was a mysterious rustling in the empty halls: pebbles and plaster, breaking off, fell down, awakening a echo, and we ran without looking back, and behind us for a long time there was knocking, stomping, and cackling.”

Next we find out who lives in this castle. The people who live there are poor, strange, crazy, broke. In general, all the urban rabble. They cannot pay for housing, so they live in this castle (Fig. 8).

Rice. 8. Inhabitants of the castle ()

““Lives in a castle” - this phrase has become an expression of extreme poverty and civil decline. The old castle cordially received and covered the rolling snow, the temporarily impoverished scribe, the lonely old women, and the rootless vagabonds. All these creatures tormented the insides of the decrepit building, breaking off the ceilings and floors, stoking the stoves, cooking something, eating something - in general, they carried out their vital functions in an unknown way.”

The inhabitants of the city's "bottom" live in this castle. But people are structured in such a way that there is no “bottom” that cannot be deepened, and in any company of outcasts there is an opportunity to single out even more outcasts from these outcasts. This is what happens in the story.

The informal leader of the castle company (Janusz) after some conflicts carries out an expulsion operation. As the book says, "separation of the lambs from the goats"(this is a biblical expression), that is, good lambs from evil goats. As a result, some people find themselves expelled from the castle. They are forced to look for shelter elsewhere (Fig. 9).

“Some unfortunate dark personalities, wrapped in extremely torn rags, frightened, pitiful and embarrassed, scurried around the island, like moles driven out of their holes by boys, trying again to sneak unnoticed into one of the openings of the castle.”

These people are described as some kind of frightened animals, as if they were no longer people.

Rice. 9. Expulsion from the castle ()

Those who have fled the castle find shelter in the abandoned chapel and sometimes appear in the city. These strange dark personalities are followed by boys, including the main character Vasya, who is very attracted to the people living in the chapel.

People from the chapel can be called representatives of democracy. The narrator reports that representatives of the city’s “bottom” were divided into two conventional parts: aristocracy and democracy. People lead different lifestyles. Those who remained in the castle are recognized by the city. On Saturdays they decorously come to the city and receive alms, the city feeds and tolerates them. The city does not tolerate, does not love, and is afraid of the residents of the chapel. They lead a reprehensible lifestyle: they wander around, drink, and earn food by nebulous methods, including theft.

The first reason why Vasya is drawn specifically to the inhabitants of the chapel is artistic. The town is boring, Vasya has nothing to do. And these people are something like a traveling theater, they perform performances all the time. Among them there are different people: insignificant, attractive, drunk, sober, but they are all some kind of artists, and the city bourgeoisie are most often spectators of their performances. Vasya is one of the spectators.

The most attractive actor for Vasya is Pan Tyburtsy - a man who will play a very special role in the boy’s life.

Tyburtsy is an extraordinary person, this is immediately obvious. On the one hand, he looks like a man, on the other hand, he is educated: he knows Latin and Greek and can quote large chunks of text from memory.

If some of the inhabitants of the chapel are artists unwillingly, then Tyburtsy gives performances deliberately. This is one of the ways to earn it. He acts as a speaker or even a stage actor in various drinking establishments (Fig. 10). Fragment from the text:

“There was not a tavern in the whole city in which Pan Tyburtsy, for the edification of the crests who gathered on market days, did not pronounce, standing on a barrel, entire speeches from Cicero, entire chapters from Xenophon. The crests opened their mouths and pushed each other with their elbows, and Pan Tyburtsy, towering in his rags above the entire crowd, thundered against Catiline or described the exploits of Caesar or the treachery of Mithridates. crests, generally endowed by nature with a rich imagination, knew how to somehow put their own meaning into these animated, albeit incomprehensible speeches... And when, beating himself on the chest and sparkling his eyes, he addressed them with the words: “Patros conscripti” [Fathers senators (lat.)] - they also frowned and said to each other:

“Well, the enemy’s son barks like that!”

Rice. 10. Speech by Tyburtsiya ()

Tyburtsy acts as a comedian, and this whole scene is described in Gogol's style. But this man, who makes the audience laugh and amuses himself, has one peculiarity - he always has sad eyes, there is eternal melancholy in them. And Vasya notices this. That is, Tyburtsy is a sad clown.

The second reason why Vasya is drawn to these most humiliated, very lowly people in the entire town, and not to the inhabitants of the castle, is compassion. He is a very sensitive and compassionate boy. He understands what grief, sadness and loneliness are. The scene of the expulsion of the unfortunates from the castle unpleasantly struck and touched him:

“I could not forget the cold cruelty with which the triumphant residents of the castle drove away their unfortunate roommates, and when I remembered the dark personalities left homeless, my heart sank.”

This six year old boy is very unhappy. He has a terrible discord with his father, not to mention the grief from the death of his mother (Fig. 11). Everything is bad at home, and he leads the life of a renegade and a vagabond. That is, in some ways he is similar to these people from the chapel.

Rice. 11. Vasya and his father ()

Here's his position:

“I was very rarely seen at home. On late summer evenings I sneaked through the garden like a young wolf cub, avoiding meeting my father, opened my window, half-closed by the thick green lilacs, using special devices, and quietly went to bed. If my little sister was still awake in her rocking chair in the next room, I would go up to her and we would quietly caress each other and play, trying not to wake up the grumpy old nanny.

And in the morning, just before dawn, when everyone was still sleeping in the house, I was already making a dewy trail in the thick, tall grass of the garden, climbing over the fence and walking to the pond, where the same tomboyish comrades were waiting for me with fishing rods, or to the mill, where the sleepy the miller had just pulled back the sluices and the water, shuddering sensitively on the mirror surface, rushed into the “streams” and cheerfully set about the day’s work.

In general, everyone called me a tramp, a worthless boy, and so often reproached me for various bad inclinations that I finally became imbued with this conviction myself. My father also believed this and sometimes made attempts to educate me, but these attempts always ended in failure. At the sight of the stern and gloomy face, on which lay the stern stamp of incurable grief, I became timid and withdrawn into myself. I stood in front of him, shifting, fiddling with my panties, and looking around. At times something seemed to rise in my chest; I wanted him to hug me, sit me on his lap and caress me. Then I would cling to his chest, and perhaps we would cry together - the child and the stern man - about our common loss. But he looked at me with hazy eyes, as if over my head, and I shrank all under this gaze, incomprehensible to me.

And little by little the abyss that separated us became wider and deeper. He became more and more convinced that I was a bad, spoiled boy, with a callous, selfish heart, and the consciousness that he should, but could not take care of me, should love me, but did not find a corner for this love in his heart, further increased his dislike. And I felt it.

From the age of six I already experienced the horror of loneliness. Sister Sonya was four years old. I loved her passionately, and she repaid me with the same love; but the established view of me as an inveterate little robber erected a high wall between us. I got used to the reproaches and endured them, just as I endured the sudden onset of rain or the heat of the sun. I listened gloomily to the comments and acted my way.”

It is commonly believed that grief brings people together, but this is not always the case. Grief often separates loved ones. This story describes such an unfortunate situation. It seems that there is no way out of it: both the boy and the father are unhappy. The gap between them is widening... But unexpectedly, a way out is found thanks to the very people who lived in the chapel and to whom it was not for nothing that Vasya was so drawn. But this is a topic for a separate lesson.

Bibliography

1. Textbook-khre-sto-ma-tiya for 5th grade / edited. Ko-ro-vi-noy V.Ya. - M. “Pro-lighting”, 2013.
2. Akhmetzyanov M.G. “Literature in 5th grade in 2 parts.” Textbook-reader. - Magarif, 2005.
3. E.A. Samoilova, Zh.I. Kritarova. Literature. 5th grade. Textbook in 2 parts. - M. Association XXI century, 2013.

1. Korolenko.lit-info.ru ().
2. Literaturus.ru ().
3. Flatik.ru ().

Homework

1. How do we see the image of the city in the story “In Bad Society”? Give examples from the text of the work.
2. Give a description of Mr. Tyburtsy. Why, in your opinion, was Vasya drawn to this particular person?
3. Describe the relationship between Vasya and his father.

V.G.KOROLENKO

IN BAD SOCIETY

From my friend's childhood memories

Preparation of text and notes: S.L. KOROLENKO and N.V. KOROLENKO-LYAKHOVICH

I. RUINS

My mother died when I was six years old. My father, completely absorbed in his grief, seemed to completely forget about my existence. At times he would caress my little sister and take care of her in his own way, because she had her mother’s traits. I grew up like a wild tree in a field - no one surrounded me with special care, but no one constrained my freedom.

The place where we lived was called Knyazhye-Veno, or, more simply, Knyazh-gorodok. It belonged to one seedy but proud Polish family and represented all the typical features of any of the small towns of the South-Western region, where, among the quietly flowing life of hard work and petty fussy Jewish gesheft, the pitiful remains of the proud lordly greatness live out their sad days.

If you approach the town from the east, the first thing that catches your eye is the prison, the best architectural decoration of the city. The city itself lies below sleepy, moldy ponds, and you have to go down to it along a sloping highway, blocked by a traditional “outpost”. A sleepy disabled person, a figure browned in the sun, the personification of a serene slumber, lazily raises the barrier, and - you are in the city, although, perhaps, you do not notice it right away. Gray fences, vacant lots with heaps of all sorts of rubbish are gradually interspersed with dim-sighted huts sunk into the ground. Further, the wide square gapes in different places with the dark gates of Jewish “visiting houses”; government institutions are depressing with their white walls and barracks-like lines. A wooden bridge spanning a narrow river groans, trembles under the wheels, and staggers like a decrepit old man. Beyond the bridge stretched a Jewish street with shops, benches, little shops, tables of Jewish money changers sitting under umbrellas on the sidewalks, and with awnings of kalachniki. The stench, the dirt, the heaps of kids crawling in the street dust. But another minute and you are already outside the city. The birch trees whisper quietly over the graves of the cemetery, and the wind stirs the grain in the fields and rings with a sad, endless song in the wires of the roadside telegraph.

The river over which the aforementioned bridge was thrown flowed from a pond and flowed into another. Thus, the town was fenced from the north and south by wide expanses of water and swamps. The ponds became shallower year by year, overgrown with greenery, and tall, dense reeds waved like the sea in the huge swamps. There is an island in the middle of one of the ponds. There is an old, dilapidated castle on the island.

I remember with what fear I always looked at this majestic decrepit building. There were legends and stories about him, one more terrible than the other. They said that the island was built artificially, by the hands of captured Turks. “On human bones stands an old castle,” the old-timers said, and my frightened childhood imagination pictured thousands of Turkish skeletons underground, supporting with their bony hands the island with its tall pyramidal poplars and the old castle. This, of course, made the castle seem even more terrible, and even on clear days, when sometimes, encouraged by the light and the loud voices of birds, we came closer to it, it often brought on us fits of panic horror - the black hollows of the long-dug out windows; There was a mysterious rustling in the empty halls: pebbles and plaster, breaking off, fell down, awakening a echo, and we ran without looking back, and behind us for a long time there was knocking, stomping, and cackling.

And on stormy autumn nights, when the giant poplars swayed and hummed from the wind blowing from behind the ponds, horror spread from the old castle and reigned over the entire city. "Oh-vey-peace!" [Oh woe is me (Heb.)] - the Jews said fearfully; God-fearing old bourgeois women were baptized, and even our closest neighbor, the blacksmith, who denied the very existence of demonic power, went out into his courtyard at these hours, made the sign of the cross and whispered to himself a prayer for the repose of the departed.

Old, gray-bearded Janusz, who, for lack of an apartment, took refuge in one of the basements of the castle, told us more than once that on such nights he clearly heard screams coming from underground. The Turks began to tinker under the island, rattling their bones and loudly reproaching the lords for their cruelty. Then weapons rattled in the halls of the old castle and around it on the island, and the lords called the haiduks with loud shouts. Janusz heard quite clearly, under the roar and howl of the storm, the tramp of horses, the clanking of sabers, the words of command. Once he even heard how the late great-grandfather of the current counts, glorified forever for his bloody exploits, rode out, clattering the hooves of his argamak, to the middle of the island and furiously swore:

“Keep quiet there, laidaks [Idlers (Polish)], psya vyara!”

The descendants of this count left the home of their ancestors long ago. Most of the ducats and all sorts of treasures, from which the chests of the counts were previously bursting, went over the bridge, into the Jewish hovels, and the last representatives of the glorious family built themselves a prosaic white building on the mountain, away from the city. There their boring, but still solemn existence passed in contemptuously majestic solitude.

Occasionally only the old count, the same gloomy ruin as the castle on the island, appeared in the city on his old English nag. Next to him, in a black riding habit, stately and dry, his daughter rode through the city streets, and the horsemaster respectfully followed behind. The majestic countess was destined to remain a virgin forever. Suitors equal to her in origin, in pursuit of the money of merchant daughters abroad, cowardly scattered around the world, leaving their family castles or selling them for scrap to the Jews, and in the town spread out at the foot of her palace, there was no young man who would dare to look up at beautiful countess. Seeing these three horsemen, we little guys, like a flock of birds, took off from the soft street dust and, quickly scattering around the courtyards, watched with frightened and curious eyes the gloomy owners of the terrible castle.

On the western side, on the mountain, among decaying crosses and sunken graves, stood a long-abandoned Uniate chapel. This was the native daughter of the philistine city itself, which was spread out in the valley. Once upon a time, at the sound of a bell, townspeople in clean, although not luxurious, kuntushas gathered in it, with sticks in their hands instead of sabers, which rattled the small gentry, who also came to the call of the ringing Uniate bell from the surrounding villages and farmsteads.

Vladimir Galaktionovich Korolenko /July 15 (27), 1853 - December 25, 1921/ - Russian writer of Ukrainian-Polish origin, journalist, publicist, public figure.

From my friend's childhood memories

Preparation of text and notes: S.L. KOROLENKO and N.V. KOROLENKO-LYAKHOVICH

I. RUINS

My mother died when I was six years old. Father, completely devoted to his

I’m burning, as if I had completely forgotten about my existence. Sometimes he caressed my

little sister and took care of her in his own way, because she had traits

mother. I grew up like a wild tree in a field - no one surrounded me with anything special.

caring, but no one constrained my freedom.

The place where we lived was called Knyazhye-Veno, or, more simply,

Prince-town. It belonged to a seedy but proud Polish family

and represented all the typical features of any of the small towns of the Southwestern

lands where, among the quietly flowing life of hard work and petty fuss

Jewish gesheft, the pitiful remains of the proud are living out their sad days

master's greatness.

If you approach the town from the east, the first thing you see is

eyes prison, the best architectural decoration of the city. The city itself is spread out

below the sleepy, moldy ponds, and you have to go down to it

sloping highway, blocked by a traditional "outpost". Sleepy disabled person,

a figure rusty in the sun, the personification of a serene slumber, lazily

raises the barrier, and - you are in the city, although perhaps you don’t notice it

straightaway. Gray fences, vacant lots with heaps of all sorts of rubbish are gradually interspersed with

weak-sighted huts sunk into the ground. Further on, a wide area gapes in

different places by the dark gates of Jewish “visiting houses”, government

institutions are depressing with their white walls and barracks-like

lines. A wooden bridge spanning a narrow river groans,

trembling under the wheels and staggering like a decrepit old man. Over the bridge

stretched a Jewish street with shops, benches, stalls, tables

Jewish money changers sitting under umbrellas on the sidewalks and with awnings. The stench

dirt, heaps of guys crawling in the street dust. But one more minute and - you're already behind

city. Birch trees whisper quietly over the graves of the cemetery, and the wind stirs the bread

in the fields and rings with a sad, endless song in the wires of the roadside

telegraph.

The river over which the said bridge is thrown flowed from the pond and

flowed into another. Thus, the town was fenced from the north and south by wide

water surfaces and swamps. The ponds became shallower year by year, overgrown with greenery, and

tall, dense reeds waved like the sea in the huge swamps. In the middle

There is an island in one of the ponds. On the island - old, dilapidated

I remember with what fear I always looked at this majestic decrepit

building. There were legends and stories about him, one more terrible than the other. They said

that the island was built artificially, by the hands of captured Turks. "On the bones

human worth the old castle, - the old-timers said, and my childhood

frightened imagination pictured thousands of Turkish skeletons underground,

supporting the island with its high pyramidal

poplars and an old castle. This, of course, made the castle seem even scarier, and

even on clear days, when, encouraged by the light and loud voices of birds,

we came closer to him, he often gave us panic attacks

horror - the black hollows of the long-broken windows looked so scary; in empty

There was a mysterious rustling in the halls: pebbles and plaster, coming off, falling

down, awakening a booming echo, and we ran without looking back, and they stood behind us for a long time

knocking, and stomping, and cackling.

And on stormy autumn nights, when the giant poplars swayed and hummed with

the wind blowing from behind the ponds, horror spread from the old castle and reigned over

the whole city. "Oh-vey-peace!" [Oh woe is me (Heb.)] - the Jews said fearfully;

God-fearing old bourgeois women were baptized, and even our nearest neighbor,

the blacksmith, who denied the very existence of demonic power, going out at these hours to

his courtyard, made the sign of the cross and whispered to himself a prayer for repose

Old, gray-bearded Janusz, who, for lack of an apartment, took refuge in one of the

basements of the castle, told us more than once that on such nights he clearly

I heard screams coming from underground. The Turks began to tinker under

island, rattled bones and loudly reproached the lords for cruelty. Then in the halls

old castle and around it on the island weapons were rattling, and the lords loudly

they called the haiduks with shouts. Janusz heard quite clearly, amidst the roars and howls

storms, the tramp of horses, the clanking of sabers, words of command. Once he even heard

like the late great-grandfather of the current counts, glorified forever for his

bloody deeds, rode out, clattering the hooves of his argamak, into the middle

islands and cursed furiously:

“Keep quiet there, laidaks [Idlers (Polish)], psya vyara!”

The descendants of this count left the home of their ancestors long ago. Most of

ducats and all sorts of treasures, from which the chests of the counts were previously bursting,

crossed the bridge into the Jewish shacks, and the last representatives of the glorious family

They built themselves a prosaic white building on the mountain, away from the city. There

their boring, but still solemn existence passed in

contemptuously majestic solitude.

Occasionally only the old count, the same gloomy ruin as the castle on

island, appeared in the city on his old English nag. Next to him, in

a black Amazon, stately and dry, rode through the city streets, his daughter,

and the horsemaster followed respectfully behind. The majestic countess is destined

was to remain a virgin forever. Suitors equal in origin to her, in pursuit of

money from merchants' daughters abroad, cowardly scattered around the world,

leaving the family castles or selling them for scrap to the Jews, and in the town,

spread out at the foot of her palace, there was no youth who would dare

look up at the beautiful countess. Seeing these three horsemen, we little ones

the guys, like a flock of birds, took off from the soft street dust and quickly dispersed

through the yards, with frightened, curious eyes watching the gloomy owners

scary castle.

On the western side, on the mountain, among decaying crosses and fallen

graves, there was a long-abandoned Uniate chapel. It was my own daughter

spread out in the valley of the philistine city itself. No time in it

At the sound of a bell, the townspeople gathered in clean, although not luxurious,

kuntushahs, with sticks in their hands instead of sabers with which the small gentry rattled,

also appearing at the call of the ringing Uniate bell from the surrounding villages and

From here the island and its dark huge poplars were visible, but the castle angrily

and contemptuously closed himself off from the chapel with thick greenery, and only in those moments

when the southwest wind broke out from behind the reeds and flew onto the island, the poplars

swayed loudly, and because of them the windows gleamed, and the castle seemed to be throwing

chapel gloomy looks. Now both he and she were corpses. He has eyes

went out, and the reflections of the evening sun did not sparkle in them; she has somewhere

the roof collapsed, the walls crumbled, and, instead of a booming, high-pitched

copper bell, owls began to sing their ominous songs in it at night.

But the old, historical strife that divided the once proud master's castle

and the bourgeois Uniate chapel, continued after their death: her

supported by the worms swarming in these decrepit corpses, occupying the surviving

dungeon corners, basements. These grave worms of dead buildings were people.

There was a time when the old castle served as a free refuge for every poor person.

without the slightest restrictions. Everything that did not find a place in the city, all sorts of

an existence that has jumped out of the rut, lost, for one reason or another,

the opportunity to pay even a pittance for shelter and shelter for the night and

bad weather - all this was drawn to the island and there, among the ruins, bowed their

victorious little heads, paying for hospitality only with the risk of being buried

under piles of old garbage. “Lives in a castle” - this phrase has become an expression

extreme poverty and civil decline. The old castle welcomed

and covered the rolling snow, and the temporarily impoverished scribe, and the lonely

old women and homeless tramps. All these creatures tormented the insides of the decrepit

buildings, breaking off ceilings and floors, stoked stoves, cooked something,

ate - in general, carried out their vital functions in an unknown way.

However, the days came when among this society, huddled under the roof

gray ruins, division arose, discord began. Then old Janusz, former

once one of the small count "officials" (Note p. 11), procured

himself something like a sovereign charter and seized the reins of government. He

began the transformation, and for several days there was such a noise on the island,

such screams were heard that at times it seemed as if the Turks had broken out

from underground dungeons to take revenge on the oppressors. It was Janusz who sorted

population of ruins, separating the sheep from the goats. The sheep still left

castle, helped Janusz drive out the unfortunate goats who resisted,

showing desperate but futile resistance. When, finally, at

silent, but, nevertheless, quite significant assistance of the guard,

order was restored on the island again, it turned out that the coup had

decidedly aristocratic in character. Janusz left only “good people” in the castle

Christians", that is, Catholics, and, moreover, mainly former servants or

descendants of servants of the count's family. They were all some old men in shabby

frock coats and "chamarkas" (Note p. 11), with huge blue noses and

with gnarled sticks, old women, loud and ugly, but retaining

in the last stages of impoverishment, their bonnets and cloaks. All of them were

homogeneous, closely united aristocratic circle, which took, as it were,

monopoly of recognized beggary. On weekdays these old men and women walked, with

prayer on the lips, in the homes of the more prosperous townspeople and the middle class,

spreading gossip, complaining about fate, shedding tears and begging, and

on Sundays, they also constituted the most respectable persons from the public that for long

lined up in rows near churches and majestically accepted handouts in the name of

"Pan Jesus" and "Pan Our Lady".

Attracted by the noise and shouts that rushed from the

islands, I and several of my comrades made our way there and, hiding behind

thick trunks of poplars, watched as Janusz, at the head of an entire army

red-nosed elders and ugly vixens, drove the latter out of the castle,

residents subject to expulsion. Evening was coming. A cloud hanging over the high

the tops of poplars, it was already raining. Some unfortunate dark personalities,

wrapped in extremely torn rags, frightened, pitiful and

Confused, they scurried around the island like moles driven out of their holes.

boys, trying again to sneak unnoticed into one of the holes

castle But Janusz and the vixens, shouting and cursing, drove them away from everywhere,

threatening with pokers and sticks, and standing aside stood a silent watchman, also with

with a heavy club in his hands, maintaining armed neutrality, obviously

friendly to the triumphant party. And unfortunate dark personalities involuntarily,

dejectedly, they disappeared behind the bridge, leaving the island forever, and one after another

drowned in the slushy twilight of the rapidly descending evening.

From this memorable evening both Janusz and the old castle, from which

breathed on me some kind of vague greatness, lost all their

attractiveness. It used to be that I loved to come to the island and although from afar

admire its gray walls and old mossy roof. When in the morning

at dawn, various figures crawled out of it, yawning, coughing and

baptized in the sun, I looked at them with some kind of respect, as if

creatures clothed in the same mystery that shrouded the entire castle.

They sleep there at night, they hear everything that happens there, when in huge

the moon looks into the halls through the broken windows or when it bursts into them during a storm

wind. I loved to listen when Janusz used to sit down under the poplars and

with the loquacity of a seventy-year-old man, he began to talk about the glorious

past of the deceased building. Images came to life before children's imaginations

past, and a majestic sadness and vague sympathy for that

what once lived the drooping walls, and the romantic shadows of alien antiquity ran

in a young soul, as light shadows of clouds run across a bright day on a windy day

green open field.

But from that evening both the castle and its bard appeared before me in a new light.

Having met me the next day near the island, Janusz began to invite me to his place,

assuring with a pleased look that now “the son of such respectable parents” boldly

can visit the castle, as he will find quite decent society in it. He

even led me by the hand to the castle itself, but then I tearfully snatched it from him

his hand and started to run. The castle became disgusting to me. Windows on the top floor

were boarded up, and the bottom was in the possession of bonnets and cloaks. Old women

crawled out of there in such an unattractive form, flattered me so cloyingly,

argued among themselves so loudly that I was sincerely surprised how strict

the dead man who pacified the Turks on stormy nights could tolerate these old women in his

neighborhood. But most importantly, I could not forget the cold cruelty with which

the triumphant residents of the castle drove away their unfortunate roommates, and when

memories of dark personalities left homeless made me cringe

Be that as it may, from the example of the old castle I learned for the first time the truth that

from the great to the ridiculous there is only one step. The great thing in the castle is overgrown with ivy,

dodder and mosses, but the funny seemed disgusting to me, it cut too much

childish sensitivity, since the irony of these contrasts was still

not available.

II. PROBLEMATIC NATURES

The city spent several nights after the described coup on the island

very restless: dogs were barking, house doors were creaking, and the townsfolk, every now and then

going out into the street, they banged on the fences with sticks, letting someone know that they

on guard. The city knew that along its streets in the stormy darkness of a rainy night

people wander around who are hungry and cold, who are shivering and getting wet; understanding

that cruel feelings must be born in the hearts of these people, the city

became wary and sent his threats towards these feelings. And the night is like

deliberately, descended to the ground in the middle of a cold downpour and left, leaving above

low running clouds on the ground. And the wind raged among the bad weather, shaking the tops

trees, knocking shutters and singing to me in my bed about dozens of people,

deprived of warmth and shelter.

But spring has finally triumphed over the last impulses

winter, the sun dried up the earth, and at the same time homeless wanderers somewhere

subsided. The barking of dogs at night calmed down, the townsfolk stopped knocking on

fences, and the life of the city, sleepy and monotonous, went its own way. Hot

the sun, rolling into the sky, burned the dusty streets, driving the nimble

the children of Israel who traded in the city shops; "factors" lazily lay on

in the sun, vigilantly looking out for those passing by; the creak of official feathers was heard

into open windows of public places; in the mornings the city ladies scurried about with

baskets around the market, and in the evening they walked solemnly arm in arm with their

the faithful, raising the street dust in lush plumes. Old men and women from

the castle, they walked decorously through the houses of their patrons, without disturbing the general harmony.

The average person willingly recognized their right to exist, finding it completely

thorough, so that someone receives alms on Saturdays, and the inhabitants

the old castle received it quite respectably.

Only the unfortunate exiles did not find their own track in the city.

True, they did not wander the streets at night; they said they found shelter

somewhere on the mountain, near the Uniate chapel, but how did they manage to settle down

there, no one could say for sure. Everyone only saw that on the other side,

from the mountains and ravines surrounding the chapel, the most

incredible and suspicious figures who disappeared at dusk in the same

direction. With their appearance they disturbed the quiet and dormant current

city ​​life, standing out as dark spots against the gray background. Everyday people

looked sideways at them with hostile alarm, they, in turn, glanced

philistine existence with restless, attentive glances, from which

many felt terrified. These figures did not at all resemble

aristocratic beggars from the castle - the city did not recognize them, and they did not ask

recognition; their relationship to the city was purely combative in nature: they

preferred to scold the average person than to flatter him, to take it themselves rather than

beg. They either suffered severely from persecution if they were weak, or

forced ordinary people to suffer if they had the power necessary for this.

Moreover, as often happens, among this ragged and dark crowd

unlucky people met people who, by their intelligence and talents, could do

honor to the most select society of the castle, but did not get along in it and preferred

democratic society of the Uniate chapel. Some of these figures were

marked by features of deep tragedy.

I still remember how cheerfully the street rumbled when I passed through it.

the bent, sad figure of the old "professor". It was quiet, depressed

an idiocy creature, in an old frieze overcoat, in a hat with a huge visor

and a blackened cockade. The academic title seems to have been awarded to him

due to a vague legend that somewhere and once he was a tutor.

It is difficult to imagine a more harmless and peaceful creature. Usually he

quietly wandered the streets, invisible, without any definite purpose, with a dim

with a look and a drooping head. Idle townsfolk knew two qualities about him:

which were used in forms of cruel entertainment. "Professor" forever

muttered something to himself, but not a single person could make out in these speeches

not a word. They flowed like the murmuring of a muddy stream, and at the same time dim

eyes looked at the listener, as if trying to put an elusive

meaning of a long speech. It could be started like a car; for this any of

factor, who was tired of dozing on the streets, should have called to him

old man and ask a question. The "Professor" shook his head,

thoughtfully staring at the listener with his faded eyes and began to mutter something

infinitely sad. In this case, the listener could calmly leave, or at least

fall asleep, and yet, when he woke up, he would see a sad dark

a figure still quietly muttering incomprehensible speeches. But, in itself, this

the circumstance was not yet anything particularly interesting. Main effect

street bruisers was based on another trait of the professor's character:

the unfortunate man could not indifferently hear mentions of cutting and piercing weapons.

Therefore, usually in the midst of an incomprehensible eloquence, the listener suddenly

pins!" Poor old man, so suddenly awakened from his dreams,

waved his arms like a shot bird, looked around in fear and grabbed

by the chest.

Oh, how much suffering remains incomprehensible to lanky factors only

because the sufferer cannot instill ideas about them through

healthy fist bump! And the poor “professor” just looked around with deep

longing, and inexpressible torment was heard in his voice when, turning to the tormentor

his dull eyes, he said, frantically scratching his fingers on his chest:

For the heart... for the heart with a crochet!.. for the very heart!..

He probably wanted to say that his heart was tormented by these screams,

but, apparently, it was precisely this circumstance that was capable of somewhat

entertain the idle and bored average person. And the poor "professor" hastily

he walked away, lowering his head even lower, as if fearing a blow; and behind him they thundered

peals of contented laughter in the air, like blows of a whip, lashed the same

Knives, scissors, needles, pins!

We must give justice to the exiles from the castle: they stood strong

for a friend, and if the crowd chasing the “professor” flew at that time

with two or three ragamuffins, Pan Turkevich, or especially the retired

bayonet cadet Zausailov, then many of this crowd suffered cruel punishment.

Bayonet cadet Zausailov, who had enormous growth, a bluish-purple nose and

with fiercely bulging eyes, has long declared open war on everything

living without recognizing either truces or neutralities. Every time after

the moment he stumbled upon the pursued “professor”, he was not silent for a long time

screams of abuse; he then rushed through the streets, like Tamerlane, destroying everything,

caught in the path of a formidable procession; this is how he practiced

Jewish pogroms, long before their occurrence, on a large scale;

He tortured the Jews he captured in every possible way, and over the Jewish ladies

committed heinous acts, until, finally, the expedition of the gallant bayonet-cadet

ended at the exit, where he invariably settled after fierce fights with

Butari (Note p. 16). Both sides showed a lot of heroism.

Another figure who provided entertainment to the townsfolk with the spectacle of his

misfortunes and falls, represented by a retired and completely drunk official

Lavrovsky. The inhabitants remembered the recent time when Lavrovsky was called

none other than "Mr. Clerk" when he walked around in uniform with copper

buttons, and tied delightful colored scarves around his neck. This

the circumstance added even more piquancy to the spectacle of his present

falls. The revolution in the life of Pan Lavrovsky took place quickly: for this

one had only to arrive in Knyazhye-Veno for a brilliant dragoon officer who

lived in the city for only two weeks, but during that time he managed to win and take away with

the blond daughter of a rich innkeeper. Since then, ordinary people have done nothing

They heard about the beautiful Anna, since she disappeared from their horizon forever. A

Lavrovsky was left with all his colored handkerchiefs, but without hope,

which used to brighten up the life of a petty official. Now he has not been for a long time

serves. Somewhere in a small place his family remained, for whom he was

once hope and support; but now he didn't care about anything. In rare

During the sober moments of his life, he quickly walked through the streets, looking down and not looking at anyone.

looking as if overwhelmed by the shame of his own existence; he walked

tattered, dirty, overgrown with long, unkempt hair, standing out immediately

from the crowd and attracting everyone's attention; but he himself didn’t seem to notice

I didn’t hear anyone or anything. Occasionally he cast dull glances around,

which reflected bewilderment: what do these strangers and strangers want from him?

People? What did he do to them, why are they pursuing him so persistently? Sometimes, in minutes

these glimpses of consciousness, when the name of the lady with the blond hair reached his ears

scythe, a violent rage rose in his heart; Lavrovsky's eyes

lit up with a dark fire on his pale face, and he rushed at the crowd with all his might,

which quickly ran away. Such outbreaks, although very rare, are strange

stimulated the curiosity of bored idleness; no wonder therefore that when

Lavrovsky, with his eyes down, walked through the streets, followed by a small group of

the idlers who tried in vain to bring him out of his apathy, began with annoyance

throw dirt and stones at him.

When Lavrovsky was drunk, he somehow stubbornly chose dark corners

under fences, puddles that never dried out and similar extraordinary

places where he could count on not being noticed. There he sat down, stretching out

long legs and hanging his victorious little head on his chest. Solitude and vodka

evoked in him a surge of frankness, a desire to pour out his heavy grief, depressing

soul, and he began an endless story about his young ruined life.

At the same time, he turned to the gray pillars of the old fence, to the birch tree,

condescendingly whispering something over his head, to the magpies, who with a woman's

They jumped up with curiosity towards this dark, slightly fidgeting figure.

If any of us little guys managed to track him down in this

position, we quietly surrounded him and listened with bated breath for long and

terrifying stories. Our hair stood on end, and we looked with fear

at a pale man who accused himself of all sorts of crimes. If

believe Lavrovsky’s own words, he killed his own father, drove him into the grave

mother, killed his sisters and brothers. We had no reason not to believe these terrible

confessions; we were only surprised by the fact that Lavrovsky had,

apparently, several fathers, since he pierced the heart of one with a sword, another

tormented with slow poison, drowned the third in some kind of abyss. We listened with

horror and sympathy, until Lavrovsky’s language, becoming more and more tangled,

finally refused to utter articulate sounds and beneficial sleep

did not stop his repentant outpourings. The adults laughed at us, saying that everything

It’s a lie that Lavrovsky’s parents died of natural causes, from hunger and

diseases. But we, with sensitive childish hearts, heard sincere

mental pain and, taking allegories literally, were still closer to

true understanding of a tragically crazy life.

When Lavrovsky’s head sank even lower and snoring was heard from his throat,

interrupted by nervous sobs, little children's heads bowed

then over the unfortunate one. We looked closely at his face, followed

by the way the shadows of criminal deeds ran across him in his sleep, how nervously

eyebrows shifted and lips compressed into a pitiful, almost childish cry

Ubbyu! - he suddenly cried out, feeling a pointless

anxiety from our presence, and then we rushed in a frightened flock

It happened that in such a sleepy position he was drenched in rain and fell asleep

dust, and several times in the fall it was even literally covered with snow; and if he doesn't

died a premature death, then this, without a doubt, was due to concerns about

to his sad person, others like him, unlucky people and, mainly,

to the cares of the cheerful Mr. Turkevich, who, staggering greatly, was himself looking for

He shook him, put him on his feet and took him away with him.

Pan Turkevich belonged to the number of people who, as he himself put it,

do not allow themselves to spit into the porridge, and while the “professor” and Lavrovsky

suffered passively, Turkevich presented himself as a cheerful and prosperous person in

in many ways. To begin with, without asking anyone about

statement, he immediately promoted himself to general and demanded from the townsfolk

honors corresponding to this title. Since no one dared to challenge him

rights to this title, soon Pan Turkevich was completely imbued with the faith

into its greatness. He always spoke very importantly, with his eyebrows furrowed menacingly and

revealing at any time a complete readiness to crush someone’s cheekbones,

which, apparently, he considered the most necessary prerogative of the rank of general.

If, from time to time, his carefree head was visited by any

doubts, then, having caught the first inhabitant he met on the street, he threateningly

asked:

Who am I in this place? A?

General Turkevich! - the man in the street humbly answered, feeling himself in

difficult situation. Turkevich immediately released him, majestically

twirling his mustache.

That's the same!

And since at the same time he was able to move in a very special way

with his cockroach mustache and was inexhaustible in jokes and witticisms, then

it is surprising that he was constantly surrounded by a crowd of idle listeners and they

the doors of the best “restaurant” where people gathered for billiards were even open

visiting landowners. To tell the truth, there were often cases when Mr.

Turkevich flew out of there with the speed of a man who is not being pushed from behind.

especially ceremoniously; but these cases, explained by insufficient respect

landowners to wit, did not influence the general mood of Turkevich:

cheerful self-confidence was his normal state, just like

constant intoxication.

The latter circumstance constituted the second source of his well-being, -

One drink was enough for him to recharge himself for the whole day. It was explained

this is the huge amount of vodka Turkevich has already drunk, which turned

his blood into some kind of vodka wort; the general had enough now

maintain this wort at a certain degree of concentration so that it plays and

seethed within him, painting the world for him in rainbow colors.

But if, for some reason, the general did not have any

One glass, he experienced unbearable torment. At first he fell into melancholy and

cowardice; everyone knew that at such moments the formidable general became

more helpless than a child, and many were in a hurry to take out their grievances on him. They beat him

they spat on him, threw mud at him, and he didn’t even try to avoid being reproached; He

drooping mustache. The poor fellow appealed to everyone with a request to kill him, citing this

desire by the fact that he will still have to die "like a dog"

death under the fence." Then everyone retreated from him. At such a degree it was

pursuers quickly move away so as not to see this face, not to hear

situation... A change was happening to the general again; he was becoming terrible

eyes lit up feverishly, cheeks sunken, short hair stood up

on end on end. Quickly rising to his feet, he struck his chest and

solemnly walked through the streets, announcing in a loud voice:

I’m coming!.. Like the prophet Jeremiah... I’m coming to reprove the wicked!

This promised a most interesting spectacle. It can be said with confidence that

Pan Turkevich at such moments with great success performed the functions of an unknown

our town of glasnost; therefore it is not surprising if the most

respectable and busy citizens abandoned everyday activities and joined the crowd,

accompanying the newly-minted prophet, or at least watched him from afar

adventures. Usually he first of all went to the secretary's house

district court and opened before its windows something like a court hearing,

choosing from the crowd suitable actors to portray plaintiffs and defendants; himself

spoke for them and answered them himself, imitating with great skill

the performance is of modern interest, hinting at some well-known

case, and since, in addition, he was a great expert in judicial procedure, then

no wonder that very soon the cook ran out of the secretary’s house,

she shoved something into Turkevich’s hand and quickly disappeared, fending off pleasantries

general's retinue. The general, having received the donation, laughed evilly and, triumphantly

waving a coin, he went to the nearest tavern.

From there, having quenched his thirst somewhat, he led his listeners to their homes.

"subjudice", modifying the repertoire according to the circumstances. And since

each time he received a fee for the performance, it was natural that the menacing tone

gradually softened, the eyes of the frenzied prophet became buttery, his mustache

twisted upward, and the performance moved from an accusatory drama to

fun vaudeville. It usually ended in front of the house of police chief Kots.

He was the most good-natured of city governors, possessing two small

weaknesses: firstly, he dyed his gray hair with black dye and,

secondly, he had a passion for fat cooks, relying on everything else

to the will of God and to voluntary philistine “gratitude.” Approaching

Turkevich winked cheerfully at the police station's house, which faced the street

to his companions, threw his cap in the air and loudly announced that he lived here

not a boss, but his own, Turkevich’s, father and benefactor.

Then he fixed his gaze on the windows and waited for the consequences. Consequences

these were of two kinds: either immediately a fat woman ran out of the front door

and rosy Matryona with a gracious gift from her father and benefactor, or a door

remained closed, an angry old woman flashed in the office window

face framed by jet-black hair, and Matryona quietly

sneaked backwards onto the exit ramp. On the move-out he had permanent residence

Butar Mikita, who has become remarkably skilled in dealing with Turkevich.

He immediately phlegmatically put aside his shoe last and stood up

from your seat.

Meanwhile, Turkevich, not seeing the benefit of praises, little by little and carefully

began to move on to satire. He usually began with regret that

for some reason his benefactor considers it necessary to dye his venerable gray hair

shoe polish. Then, upset by the complete lack of attention to his eloquence,

the example set to citizens by illegal cohabitation with Matryona. Having reached this

sensitive subject, the general was already losing all hope of reconciliation with

benefactor and therefore inspired by true eloquence. Unfortunately,

usually at this very point in speech an unexpected extraneous thing happened

intervention; Kots’s yellow and angry face was sticking out of the window, and behind him

Turkevich was picked up with remarkable dexterity by Mikita, who had crept up to him.

None of the listeners even tried to warn the speaker about the threat

danger, because Mikita’s artistic techniques aroused everyone’s admiration.

The general, interrupted in mid-sentence, suddenly flashed strangely in the air,

tipped his back onto Mikita's back - and after a few seconds the hefty

butar, slightly bent under his burden, amid deafening screams

crowd, calmly headed to the jail. Another minute, the black door is moving out

opened like a gloomy mouth, and the general, helplessly dangling his legs,

solemnly disappeared behind the prison door. The ungrateful crowd shouted at Mikita

"Hurray" and slowly dispersed.

In addition to these individuals who stood out from the crowd, there was another group huddled around the chapel.

a dark mass of pitiful ragamuffins, whose appearance at the market produced

there was always great anxiety among the traders who were in a hurry to cover their goods with their hands,

just as hens cover their chickens when a kite appears in the sky.

There were rumors that these pathetic individuals, completely deprived of all resources

from the time of expulsion from the castle, they formed a friendly community and engaged in

among other things, petty theft in the city and surrounding areas. These were based

rumors are mainly based on the indisputable premise that a person cannot

exist without food; and since almost all of these dark personalities, one way or another

otherwise, they strayed from the usual methods of obtaining it and were wiped out by the lucky ones

from the castle from the benefits of local philanthropy, then the inevitable followed

the conclusion was that they had to steal or die. They didn't die

that means... the very fact of their existence was turned into proof of their

criminal behavior.

If only this were true, then it was no longer subject to dispute that

the organizer and leader of the community could not be anyone other than Mr.

Tyburtsy Drab, the most remarkable personality of all problematic natures,

who did not get along in the old castle.

The origin of Drab was shrouded in the most mysterious darkness

unknown. People gifted with a strong imagination attributed to him

an aristocratic name, which he covered with shame and therefore was forced

to hide, and allegedly participated in the exploits of the famous Karmelyuk. But,

firstly, he was not yet old enough for this, and secondly, his appearance

Pan Tyburtsy did not have a single aristocratic trait in herself. He was tall

high; a strong stoop seemed to speak of the burden endured

Tyburtsy of misfortunes; the large facial features were crudely expressive. Short,

slightly reddish hair stuck out apart; low forehead, somewhat prominent

forward lower jaw and strong mobility of the personal muscles gave the entire

the physiognomy is something of a monkey; but the eyes, sparkling from under overhanging eyebrows,

looked stubbornly and gloomily, and in them shone, along with slyness, a sharp

insight, energy and remarkable intelligence. While on his face

a whole kaleidoscope of grimaces alternated, these eyes always retained one

an expression that always made me feel unaccountably creepy to look at

this strange man's nonsense. It was as if a deep

relentless sadness.

Pan Tyburtsy's hands were rough and covered with calluses, his large feet walked

like a man. In view of this, most ordinary people did not recognize him

of aristocratic origin, and at most that agreed

Let us assume that this is the title of a servant of one of the noble lords.

But then again a difficulty was encountered: how to explain his phenomenal

learning that was obvious to everyone. There was no tavern in the whole city, in

which Pan Tyburtsy, for the edification of the crests who gathered on market days, would not

made, standing on a barrel, entire speeches from

Cicero, entire chapters from Xenophon. crests opened their mouths and pushed

each other with their elbows, and Pan Tyburtsy, towering in his rags above everyone

crowd, smashed Catiline or described the exploits of Caesar or the treachery of Mithridates.

crests, generally endowed by nature with a rich imagination, knew how to somehow invest

your own meaning into these animated, albeit incomprehensible speeches... And

when, beating himself on the chest and flashing his eyes, he addressed them with the words:

“Patros conscripti” [Fathers Senators (lat.)] - they also frowned and said

each other:

That's how the enemy's son barks!

When then Pan Tyburtsi, raising his eyes to the ceiling, began

recite the longest Latin periods, - mustachioed listeners followed him

with fearful and pitiful participation. It seemed to them then that the soul of the reciter

hovers somewhere in an unknown country, where they speak not Christian, but

from the speaker's desperate gestures they concluded that she was experiencing

some sad adventures. But the greatest tension was achieved by this

sympathetic attention when Pan Tyburtsy, rolling his eyes and moving some

squirrels, pestered the audience with a long chant of Virgil or Homer.

corners and the listeners who were most susceptible to the influence of the Jewish vodka lowered

heads, hung their long “chuprins” trimmed in front and began

sob:

Oh-oh, mother, that’s pitiful, give him an encore! - And tears dripped from my eyes

and flowed down his long mustache.

It is therefore not surprising that when the speaker suddenly jumped down

from the barrel and burst into cheerful laughter, the gloomy faces of the crests suddenly

cleared up, and hands reached out to the pockets of their wide pants for coppers.

Delighted by the successful end of the tragic excursions of Pan Tyburtsy,

crests gave him vodka, hugged him, and fell into his cap, ringing,

In view of such amazing scholarship, it was necessary to construct a new hypothesis about

the origin of this eccentric, which would be more consistent with the stated

facts" They made peace on the fact that Mr. Tyburtsy was once a yard boy

some count who sent him and his son to school

Jesuit fathers, actually on the subject of cleaning the boots of the young panic.

It turned out, however, that while the young count perceived

mainly the blows of the three-tailed "discipline" of the holy fathers, his lackey

intercepted all the wisdom that was assigned to the head of the barchuk.

Due to the secrecy surrounding Tyburtsy, among other professions, he

They also attributed excellent information on the art of witchcraft. If on

fields adjoining the last shacks of the suburbs like a wavering sea,

suddenly witchcraft “twists” appeared (Note p. 25), then no one could

snatch them out with greater safety for yourself and the reapers, like Pan Tyburtsy. If

the ominous "scarecrow" [Filin] flew in the evenings onto someone's roof and made loud noises

screamed death there, they again invited Tyburtsy, and he with great

successfully drove away the ominous bird with teachings from Titus Livy.

No one could also say where Mr. Tyburtsy’s children came from, but

Meanwhile, the fact, although not explained by anyone, was obvious... even two

fact: a boy of about seven years old, but tall and developed beyond his years, and small

three year old girl. Pan Tyburtsy brought the boy, or rather, brought him with

himself from the first days, when he appeared on the horizon of our city. What

concerns the girl, then, apparently, he went away to acquire her, for

several months to completely unknown countries.

A boy named Valek, tall, thin, black-haired, staggered gloomily

sometimes around the city without much business, putting his hands in his pockets and throwing

looks on both sides that confused the hearts of the kalachnitsa. The girl was seen only by one or

twice in the arms of Pan Tyburtsy, and then she disappeared somewhere, and where

was located - no one knew.

There was talk about some dungeons on the Uniate mountain near the chapel, and

since in those regions where the Tatars so often took place with fire and sword, where

once upon a time the master's "svavolya" (self-will) raged and a bloody massacre reigned

Daredevil Haidamaks, such dungeons are very common, then everyone believed it

rumors, especially since this whole horde of dark vagabonds lived somewhere. A

they usually disappeared in the evening in the direction of the chapel. There

the “professor” hobbled with his sleepy gait, walked decisively and quickly

Tyburtsy; there Turkevich, staggering, accompanied the ferocious and helpless

Lavrovsky; they went there in the evening, drowning in twilight, other dark

personality, and there was no brave person who would dare to follow them

along clay cliffs. The mountain, pitted with graves, enjoyed a bad reputation. On

blue lights lit up in the old cemetery on damp autumn nights, and owls in the chapel

screamed so piercingly and loudly that from the screams of the damned bird even

The fearless blacksmith's heart sank.

III. ME AND MY FATHER

Bad, young man, bad! - old Janusz from

castle, meeting me on the streets of the city in the retinue of Pan Turkevich or among

Mr. Drab's listeners.

And the old man shook his gray beard at the same time.

It’s bad, young man - you’re in bad company!.. It’s a pity, it’s a pity

the son of respectable parents, who does not spare family honor.

Indeed, since my mother died and my father's stern face became

even more gloomy, I was very rarely seen at home. On late summer evenings I

sneaked through the garden like a young wolf cub, avoiding meeting his father,

opened his window, half-closed by thick

green lilacs, and quietly went to bed. If little sister hasn't yet

she was sleeping in her rocking chair in the next room, I went up to her, and we quietly

caressed each other and played, trying not to wake up the grumpy old nanny.

And in the morning, just before it was light, when everyone in the house was still sleeping, I was already laying

a dewy trail in the thick, tall grass of the garden, climbed over the fence and walked towards

the pond, where the same tomboyish comrades were waiting for me with fishing rods, or to the mill,

where the sleepy miller had just pulled back the sluices and the water, shuddering sensitively

mirror surface, threw herself into the “streams” (Note p. 27) and cheerfully

took up the day's work.

Large mill wheels, awakened by noisy shocks of water, also

shuddered, somehow reluctantly gave in, as if too lazy to wake up, but after

They were already spinning for a few seconds, splashing foam and bathing in cold streams.

Behind them the thick shafts began to move slowly and steadily, and inside the mill they began

gears rumbled, millstones rustled, and white flour dust rose in clouds

from the cracks of an old, old mill building.

glad when I managed to scare away a sleepy lark or drive him out of

furrows of the cowardly hare. Drops of dew fell from the tops of the shaker, from the heads

meadow flowers as I made my way through the fields to the country grove. Trees

greeted me with whispers of lazy drowsiness. Haven't looked out of the prison windows yet

pale, gloomy faces of the prisoners, and only the guards, loudly clanking their guns,

walked around the wall, replacing tired night guards.

I managed to make a long detour, and yet in the city every now and then

I met sleepy figures opening the shutters of houses. But here's the sun

has already risen above the mountain, from behind the ponds a loud bell can be heard calling

high school students, and hunger calls me home for morning tea.

In general, everyone called me a tramp, a worthless boy, and so often reproached me

in various bad inclinations, that I finally became imbued with it myself

conviction. My father also believed this and sometimes made attempts to take care of my

education, but these attempts always ended in failure. At the sight of a strict and

gloomy face, on which lay the stern stamp of incurable grief, I was timid and

closed in on himself. I stood in front of him, shifting, fiddling with my panties, and

looked around. At times something seemed to rise in my chest;

I wanted him to hug me, sit me on his lap and caress me.

Then I would cling to his chest, and perhaps we would cry together -

a child and a stern man - about our common loss. But he looked at me

with hazy eyes, as if on top of my head, and I shrank all under

with this look that is incomprehensible to me.

Do you remember mother?

Did I remember her? Oh yes, I remembered her! I remembered how it used to be when I woke up

at night, I looked for her tender hands in the darkness and pressed tightly to them, covering

their kisses. I remembered her when she sat sick in front of the open window and

sadly looked at the wonderful spring picture, saying goodbye to it for the last year

own life.

Oh yes, I remembered her!.. When she, all covered with flowers, was young and

beautiful, lay with the mark of death on her pale face, I, like an animal, writhed

into the corner and looked at her with burning eyes, before which he first opened

all the horror of a riddle about life and death. And then, when she was carried away in the crowd

strangers, was it not my sobs that sounded like a muffled groan in the dusk?

the first night of my orphanhood?

Oh yes, I remembered her!.. And now often, in the dead of midnight, I woke up,

full of love, which was crowded in the chest, overflowing the childish

heart, woke up with a smile of happiness, in blissful ignorance inspired

pink dreams of childhood. And again, as before, it seemed to me that she was with me,

that I will now meet her loving sweet caress. But my hands reached out

empty darkness, and the consciousness of bitter loneliness penetrated into the soul. Then I

I squeezed my small, painfully beating heart with my hands, and tears burned through

hot streams on my cheeks.

Oh yes, I remembered her!.. But to the question of the tall, gloomy man,

which I desired, but could not feel my soulmate, I shrank even more

and quietly pulled his little hand out of his hand.

And he turned away from me with annoyance and pain. He felt that he was not

has not the slightest influence on me, that between us there is some kind of irresistible

wall. He loved her too much when she was alive, not noticing me because

your happiness. Now I was blocked from him by severe grief.

And little by little the abyss that separated us became wider and deeper.

He became more and more convinced that I was a bad, spoiled boy, with a callous,

egoistic heart, and the consciousness that he should, but cannot, take care of me,

should love me, but does not find a corner for this love in his heart, yet

increased his dislike. And I felt it. Sometimes, hiding in

bushes, I watched him; I saw him walking along the alleys, speeding up everything

gait, and groaned dully from unbearable mental anguish. Then my heart

lit up with pity and sympathy. One time, when, squeezing his head with his hands, he

I sat down on a bench and started sobbing, I couldn’t stand it and ran out of the bushes onto the path,

obeying a vague impulse that pushed me towards this man. But

he, awakening from his gloomy and hopeless contemplation, looked sternly at me

and besieged with a cold question:

What do you need?

I didn't need anything. I quickly turned away, ashamed of my impulse,

afraid that my father would read it in my embarrassed face. Having run away into the thicket of the garden, I

He fell face down into the grass and cried bitterly from frustration and pain.

From the age of six I already experienced the horror of loneliness. Sister Sonya was four

of the year. I loved her passionately, and she repaid me with the same love; But

an established look at me as if I were an inveterate little robber,

erected a high wall between us. Whenever I started playing with

her, in her own noisy and playful way, the old nanny, always sleepy and always fighting, with

eyes closed, chicken feathers for pillows, immediately woke up, quickly

she grabbed my Sonya and carried her away, throwing angry glances at me; V

On such occasions she always reminded me of a disheveled hen, myself

compared him to a predatory kite, and Sonya to a little chicken. I felt

very sad and annoying. No wonder, therefore, that I soon stopped all sorts of

attempts to keep Sonya busy with my criminal games, and after some time

I felt cramped in the house and in the kindergarten, where I did not greet anyone and

caresses. I started wandering. My whole being then trembled with some strange

premonition, anticipation of life. It seemed to me that somewhere there, in this

in a large and unknown world, behind the old garden fence, I will find something; it seemed

that I had to do something and could do something, but I just didn’t know what

exactly; and meanwhile, towards this unknown and mysterious, in me from

Something rose from the depths of my heart, teasing and challenging. I've been waiting

resolution of these issues and instinctively ran away from the nanny with her feathers, and from

the familiar lazy whisper of the apple trees in our small garden, and from the stupid

the sound of knives chopping cutlets in the kitchen. Since then, to my other unflattering

the names of street urchin and tramp were added to the epithets; but I didn't pay

pay attention to this. I got used to reproaches and endured them as if I had suddenly endured them.

falling rain or sunny heat. I listened gloomily to the comments and acted

in my own way. Staggering through the streets, I peered with childishly curious eyes at

the simple life of the town with its shacks, listened to the hum of wires on

highway, away from the city noise, trying to catch what news is rushing along

him from distant big cities, or in the rustle of ears of corn, or in the whisper of the wind on

high Haidamak graves. More than once my eyes opened wide, more than once

I stopped with painful fear before the pictures of life. Image for

Thus, impression after impression fell on the soul like bright spots; I

I learned and saw a lot of things that children much older than me had not seen, and

Meanwhile, the unknown that rose from the depths of the child’s soul, as before

sounded in it with an incessant, mysterious, eroding, defiant rumble.

When the old women from the castle deprived him of respect in my eyes and

attractiveness, when all the corners of the city became known to me to the last

dirty corners, then I began to look at what was visible in the distance, at

Uniate mountain, chapel. At first, like a timid animal, I approached her with

different sides, still not daring to climb the mountain, which was

glory. But as I became acquainted with the area, people spoke to me

only quiet graves and destroyed crosses. There were no signs to be seen anywhere

any habitation or human presence. Everything was somehow humble,

quiet, abandoned, empty. Only the chapel itself looked, frowning, empty

windows, as if she was thinking some sad thought. I wanted to examine her

all, look inside to make sure that there is nothing there,

except dust. But since it would be both scary and inconvenient to undertake

such an excursion, I recruited a small detachment of three

tomboys attracted to the enterprise by the promise of buns and apples from our

The work of V. G. Korolenko “In a Bad Society” in an abbreviated version.

I. Ruins

My mother died when I was six years old. My father, completely surrendered to his grief, seemed to completely forget about my existence. Sometimes he caressed my little sister Sonya and took care of her in his own way, because she had the features of her mother. I grew up like a wild tree in a field - no one surrounded me with special care, but no one constrained my freedom.

The place where we lived was called Knyazhye-Veno or, more simply, Knyazh-gorodok...

If you approach the town from the east, the first thing that catches your eye is the prison, the best architectural decoration of the city. The city itself lies below, above the sleepy, moldy ponds. Gray fences, vacant lots with heaps of all sorts of rubbish are gradually interspersed with dim-sighted huts sunk into the ground. A wooden bridge spanning a narrow river groans, trembling under the wheels, and staggers like a decrepit old man. The stench, the dirt, the heaps of kids crawling in the street dust. But another minute - and you are already outside the city. The birches whisper quietly over the graves of the cemetery, and the wind stirs the grain in the fields and rings with a sad, endless song in the wires of the roadside telegraph.

From the north and south the town was surrounded by wide expanses of water and swamps. The ponds became shallower year after year, overgrown with greenery, and tall, thick reeds waved like the sea in the huge swamps. There is an island in the middle of one of the ponds. There is an old, dilapidated castle on the island. There were legends and stories about him, one more terrible than the other.

On the western side, on the mountain, among decaying crosses and collapsed graves, stood a long-abandoned chapel. Its roof had caved in in some places, the walls were crumbling, and instead of a echoing copper bell, owls started playing their ominous songs in it at night.

There was a time when the old castle served as a free refuge for every poor person without the slightest restrictions... All these poor people tormented the insides of the decrepit building, breaking off the ceilings and floors, lit the stoves, cooked something and ate something - in general they somehow supported their existence.

However, the days came when discord arose among this society, huddled under the roof of gray ruins. Old Janusz, who had once been one of the count's minor servants, obtained for himself something like the title of manager and began to make changes... Janusz left in the castle mainly former servants or descendants of servants of the count's family.

Attracted by the noise and shouts that rushed from the island during this revolution, I and several of my comrades made our way there and, hiding behind the thick trunks of poplars, watched as Janusz, at the head of an entire army of red-nosed elders and ugly old women, drove out of the castle the last residents to be expelled. Evening was coming. The cloud hanging over the high tops of the poplars was already pouring rain. Some unfortunate dark personalities, wrapped in extremely torn rags, pitiful and embarrassed, scurried around the island, like moles driven out of their holes by boys, trying again to sneak unnoticed into one of the openings of the castle. But Janusz and the old witches, screaming and cursing, drove them away from everywhere, threatening them with pokers and sticks, and a silent watchman stood aside 1 , also with a heavy club in his hands.

(1 Watchman- police officer.)

...Since that evening, both the castle and Janusz appeared before me in a new light... The castle became disgusting to me... I could not forget the cold cruelty with which the triumphant inhabitants of the castle drove away their unfortunate roommates, and at the memory of the dark personalities left homeless, my heart sank. The unfortunate exiles found shelter somewhere on the mountain, near the chapel, but how they managed to settle down there, no one could say for sure. Everyone only saw that from the other side, from the mountains and ravines surrounding the chapel, the most incredible and suspicious figures descended into the city in the morning, and disappeared at dusk in the same direction. There were rumors that these poor people, completely deprived of all means of living since their expulsion from the castle, formed a friendly community and, among other things, were engaged in petty theft in the city and the surrounding area.

The organizer and leader of this community of unfortunates was Pan Tyburtsy Drab, the most remarkable person of all those who did not get along in the old castle.

...Pan Tyburtsy's appearance had nothing aristocratic about him. He was tall, his large facial features were coarsely expressive. Short, slightly reddish hair stuck out apart; the low forehead, the lower jaw somewhat protruding forward and the strong mobility of the face resembled something like a monkey; but the eyes, sparkling from under the overhanging eyebrows, looked stubbornly and gloomily, and in them, along with slyness, shone sharp insight, energy and intelligence. While a whole series of grimaces alternated on his face, these eyes constantly retained one expression, which is why I was always unaccountably terrified to look at the antics of this strange man. There seemed to be a deep, constant sadness flowing underneath him.

No one knew where Mr. Tyburtsy’s children came from: a boy of about seven, but tall and developed beyond his years, and a little three-year-old girl.

A boy named Valek, tall, thin, black-haired, sometimes wandered sullenly around the city without much business, putting his hands in his pockets and throwing glances around that embarrassed the girls. 2 . The girl was seen only once or twice in the arms of Pan Tyburtsy, and then she disappeared somewhere, and no one knew where she was.

2 Kalachnitsy- sellers of rolls.

There was talk about some kind of dungeons on the mountain near the chapel. The mountain, pitted with graves, enjoyed a bad reputation. In the old cemetery, blue lights lit up on damp autumn nights, and in the chapel the owls squawked so piercingly and loudly that the heart sank...

II. Me and my father

Since my mother died, and my father's stern face became even gloomier, I was very rarely seen at home. On the last summer evenings, I sneaked through the garden like a young wolf cub, avoiding meeting my father, opened my window, half-closed by the thick green lilacs, using special devices, and quietly went to bed. If my little sister was not yet asleep in her rocking chair in the next room, I would go up to her and we would quietly caress each other and play, trying not to wake up the grumpy old nanny.

And in the morning, just before dawn, when people were still sleeping in the house, I was already making a dewy trail in the thick, tall grass of the garden, climbed over the fence and walked to the pond, where the same tomboyish comrades were waiting for me with fishing rods, or to the mill, where the sleepy miller just opened the floodgates 1 and the water, shuddering sensitively on the mirror surface, rushed into the trays 2 and cheerfully got down to work for the day...

1 Gateways- here: gates in the dam for the passage of water.
2 Tray- mill wheel blades.

I moved on. I liked to meet the awakening of nature; I was glad when I managed to scare away a sleepy lark or drive a cowardly hare out of a furrow. Drops of dew fell from the tops of the tremors, from the heads of meadow flowers, as I made my way through the fields to the country grove. The trees greeted me with whispers of lazy drowsiness.

Everyone called me a tramp, a worthless boy, and so often reproached me for various bad inclinations that I finally became imbued with this conviction myself. My father also believed this and sometimes made attempts to educate me, but the attempts always ended in failure. At the sight of the stern and gloomy face, on which lay the stern stamp of incurable grief, I became timid and withdrawn into myself. I stood in front of him, shifting, fiddling with my panties, and looking around. At times something seemed to rise in my chest, I wanted him to hug me, sit me on his lap and caress me. Then I would cling to his chest, and perhaps we would cry together - a child and a stern man - about our common loss. But he looked at me with hazy eyes, as if over my head, and I shrank all under this gaze, incomprehensible to me.

Do you remember mother?

Did I remember her? Oh yes, I remembered her! I remembered how it used to be, waking up at night, I would look for her tender hands in the darkness and press tightly to them, covering them with kisses. I remembered her when she sat sick in front of the open window and sadly looked around at the wonderful spring picture, saying goodbye to it in the last year of her life.

And now, often, in the dead of midnight, I woke up, full of love, which was crowded in my chest, overflowing a child’s heart, I woke up with a smile of happiness. And again, as before, it seemed to me that she was with me, that I would now meet her loving, sweet caress.

Yes, I remembered her!.. But to the question of the tall, gloomy man, in whom I desired, but did not feel a kindred soul, I shrank even more and quietly pulled my little hand out of his hand.

And he turned away from me with annoyance and pain. He felt that he did not have the slightest influence on me, that there was some kind of wall between us. He loved her too much when she was alive, not noticing me because of his happiness. Now I was blocked from him by severe grief.

And little by little the abyss that separated us became wider and deeper... Sometimes, hiding in the bushes, I watched him; I saw him walking along the alleys, accelerating his gait, and groaning dully from unbearable mental anguish. Then my heart lit up with pity and sympathy. Once, when, clutching his head with his hands, he sat down on a bench and sobbed, I could not stand it and ran out of the bushes onto the path, obeying a fiery desire to throw myself on my father’s neck. But, hearing my steps, he looked at me sternly and besieged me with a cold question:

What do you need?

I didn't need anything. I quickly turned away, ashamed of my outburst, afraid that my father would read it in my embarrassed face. Running into the thicket of the garden, I fell face down into the grass and cried bitterly from frustration and pain.

From the age of six I already experienced the horror of loneliness.

Sister Sonya was four years old. I loved her passionately, and she repaid me with the same love; but the established view of me as an inveterate little robber erected a high wall between us. Every time I started playing with her, in my noisy and playful way, the old nanny, always sleepy and always tearing, with her eyes closed, chicken feathers for pillows, immediately woke up, quickly grabbed my Sonya and carried her away, throwing her at me angry looks; in such cases she always reminded me of a disheveled hen, I compared myself to a predatory kite, and Sonya to a little chicken. I felt very sad and annoyed. It is therefore not surprising that I soon stopped all attempts to occupy Sonya with my criminal games, and after a while I felt cramped in the house and in the kindergarten, where I did not find greetings or affection from anyone. I started wandering.

It seemed to me that somewhere out there, in this big and unknown light, behind the old garden fence, I would find something; it seemed that I had to do something and could do something, but I just didn’t know what exactly. I got used to the reproaches and endured them, just as I endured the sudden onset of rain or the heat of the sun. I listened gloomily to the comments and acted in my own way. Staggering through the streets, I peered with childishly curious eyes into the simple life of the town with its shacks, listened to the hum of the wires on the highway, trying to catch how news rushed along them from distant big cities, or the rustle of ears of corn, or the whisper of the wind on the high Haidamak roads. graves... 3

3 Gaydamak graves- graves of Ukrainian Cossacks, participants in the uprising against Polish landowners.

When all the corners of the city became known to me, down to the last dirty nooks and crannies, then I began to look at the chapel visible in the distance, on the mountain. I wanted to examine it all, look inside to make sure that there was nothing there but dust. But since it would be both scary and inconvenient to undertake such an excursion alone, I gathered on the streets of the city a small detachment of three tomboys, attracted by the promise of buns and apples from our garden.

III. I'm making a new acquaintance

We went on a tour after lunch. The sun was beginning to set. The slanting rays softly gilded the green grass of the old cemetery, played on the old, rickety crosses, and shimmered in the surviving windows of the chapel. It was quiet, there was a sense of calm and the deep peace of an abandoned cemetery.

We were alone; only sparrows fussed around and swallows silently flew in and out of the windows of the old chapel, which stood, sadly drooping, among the graves overgrown with grass, modest crosses, half-collapsed stone tombs, on the ruins of which thick greenery lay, full of colorful heads of buttercups, porridge, and violets.

The door of the chapel was tightly boarded up, the windows were high above the ground; however, with the help of my comrades, I hoped to climb them and look inside the chapel.

No need! - one of my companions cried out, suddenly losing all his courage, and grabbed me by the hand.

Go to hell, woman! - the eldest of our small army shouted at him, readily offering his back.

I bravely climbed onto it, then he straightened up and I stood on his shoulders. In this position, I easily reached for the frame with my hand and, making sure of its strength, went up to the window and sat down on it.

Well, what's there? - they asked me from below with keen interest.

I was silent. Leaning over the doorframe, I looked inside the chapel. The interior of the tall, narrow building was devoid of any decoration. The rays of the evening sun, freely bursting into the open windows, painted the old, tattered walls with bright gold. The corners were covered with cobwebs. It seemed much further from the window to the floor than to the grass outside. I looked as if into a deep hole and at first I could not see any objects that barely stood out on the floor with strange outlines.

Meanwhile, my comrades were tired of standing below, waiting for news from me, and therefore one of them, having done the same as I had done before, hung next to me, holding onto the window frame.

What is there? - he pointed with curiosity to a dark object visible next to the throne 1 .

1 Throne- a high table standing in front of the church altar.

Pop's hat.

No, a bucket.

Why is there a bucket here?

Maybe it once contained coals for a censer 2 .

2 Censer- a vessel on chains in which fragrant resin is placed on hot coals; the censer is used during worship.

No, it's really a hat. However, you can look. Let's tie a belt to the frame and you'll climb down it.

Yes, of course, I’ll come down!.. Climb yourself if you want.

Well! Do you think I won't climb?

And climb!

Acting on my first impulse, I tightly tied two straps, touched them to the frame and, giving one end to a comrade, hung on the other. When my foot touched the floor, I winced; but a glance at my friend’s sympathetic face, bending toward me, restored my cheerfulness. The click of the heel rang under the ceiling and echoed in the emptiness of the chapel, in its dark corners. Several sparrows fluttered from their homes in the choir 3 and flew out into a large hole in the roof.

3 Choirs- gallery or balcony inside the church.

I was terrified; my friend's eyes sparkled with breathtaking curiosity and participation.

Will you come over? - he asked quietly.

“I’ll come,” I answered in the same way, gathering my courage. But at that moment something completely unexpected happened.

First there was a knock and the noise of plaster falling down on the choir. Something fussed overhead, shook a cloud of dust in the air, and a large gray mass, flapping its wings, rose to the hole in the roof. The chapel seemed to go dark for a moment. A huge old owl, disturbed by our fuss, flew out of a dark corner, flashed against the background of the blue sky in flight and darted away.

I felt a surge of convulsive fear.

Get up! - I shouted to my friend, grabbing my belt.

Don't be afraid, don't be afraid! - he reassured, preparing to lift me into the light of day and sun.

But suddenly his face was distorted with fear; he screamed and instantly disappeared, jumping from the window. I instinctively looked around and saw a strange phenomenon, which struck me, however, more with surprise than horror.

The dark object of our dispute, a hat or bucket, which in the end turned out to be a pot, flashed in the air and disappeared under the throne before my eyes. I only managed to make out the outline of a small, seemingly child’s hand.

It is difficult to convey my feelings at this moment. The feeling I experienced cannot even be called fear. From somewhere, as if from another world, within a few seconds I could hear in quick bursts the alarming patter of three pairs of children’s feet. But soon he too calmed down. I was alone, as if in a coffin, in view of some strange and inexplicable phenomena.

Time did not exist for me, so I could not say how soon I heard a restrained whisper under the throne:

Why doesn't he climb back?

What will he do now? - the whisper was heard again.

There was a lot of movement under the throne; it even seemed to sway, and at the same moment a figure emerged from under it.

It was a boy of about nine years old, larger than me, thin and thin as a reed. He was dressed in a dirty shirt, his hands were in the pockets of his tight and short pants. Dark curly hair fluttered over black, thoughtful eyes.

Although the stranger, who appeared on the scene in such an unexpected and strange way, approached me with that carefree, perky look with which boys always approached each other at our bazaar, ready to get into a fight, still, when I saw him, I was greatly encouraged. I was even more encouraged when, from under the same altar, or rather, from the hatch in the floor of the chapel that it covered, a still dirty little face appeared behind the boy, framed by blond hair and sparkling at me with childishly curious blue eyes.

I moved a little away from the wall and also put my hands in my pockets. This was a sign that I was not afraid of the enemy and even partly hinted at my contempt for him.

We stood opposite each other and exchanged glances. After looking me up and down, the boy asked:

Why are you here?

Yes, I answered. - Do you care?

My opponent moved his shoulder as if intending to take his hand out of his pocket and hit me.

I didn't blink an eye.

I'll show you! - he threatened.

I pushed my chest forward.

Well, hit... try!..

The moment was critical; The nature of further relations depended on him. I waited, but my opponent, looking at me with the same searching gaze, did not move.

“I, brother, myself... too... - I said, but more peacefully.

Meanwhile, the girl, resting her small hands on the floor of the chapel, also tried to climb out of the hatch. She fell, got up again and finally walked with unsteady steps towards the boy. Coming close, she grabbed him tightly and, pressing herself against him, looked at me with a surprised and partly frightened look.

This decided the outcome of the matter; it became quite clear that in this position the boy could not fight, and I, of course, was too generous to take advantage of his awkward position.

What is your name? - the boy asked, stroking the girl’s blond head with his hand.

Vasya. And who are you?

I'm Valek... I know you: you live in the garden above the pond. You have big apples.

Yes, it’s true, our apples are good... Would you like some?

Taking two apples from my pocket, which were intended to pay for my shamefully fleeing army, I gave one of them to Valek, and handed the other to the girl. But she hid her face, clinging to Valek.

“Afraid,” he said, and he himself handed the apple to the girl.

Why did you come here? Have I ever climbed into your garden? - he asked then.

Well, come! “I’ll be glad,” I answered cordially.

This answer puzzled Valek; he became thoughtful.

“I’m not your company,” he said sadly.

From what? - I asked, sincerely upset by the sad tone in which these words were spoken.

Your father is the judge.

So what? - I was frankly amazed. - After all, you will play with me, and not with your father.

Valek shook his head.

Tyburtsy won’t let him in,” he said, and, as if this name reminded him of something, he suddenly realized: “Listen... you seem to be a nice guy, but still you’d better leave.” If Tyburtsy catches you, it will be bad.

I agreed that it was really time for me to leave.

How can I get out of here?

I'll show you the way. We'll go out together.

And she? - I pointed my finger at our little lady.

Marusya? She will also come with us.

What, out the window?

Valek thought about it.

No, here's the thing: I'll help you climb up the window, and we'll go out the other way.

With the help of my new friend, I climbed to the window. Having untied the belt, I wrapped it around the frame and, holding both ends, hung in the air. Then, lowering one end, I jumped to the ground and pulled out the belt. Valek and Marusya were already waiting for me under the wall outside.

The sun had recently set behind the mountain. The city was drowned in a lilac-foggy shadow, and only the tops of the tall poplars on the island stood out sharply with red gold, painted with the last rays of the sunset.

How good! - I said, overwhelmed by the freshness of the coming evening and inhaling deeply the damp coolness.

It’s boring here... - Valek said sadly.

Do you all live here? - I asked when the three of us began to descend from the mountain.

Where is your home?

I could not imagine that children could live without a “home.”

Valek grinned with his usual sad look and did not answer.

Having walked between the reeds through a dried-up swamp and crossed a stream on thin planks, we found ourselves at the foot of the mountain, on a plain.

It was necessary to part here. After shaking the hand of my new friend, I also extended it to the girl. She tenderly gave me her tiny hand and, looking up with blue eyes, asked:

Will you come to us again?

“I’ll come,” I answered, “certainly!”

Well,” Valek said thoughtfully, “perhaps only come at a time when our people will be in the city.”

Fine. I'll see when they're in town and then I'll come. In the meantime, goodbye!

Hey, listen up! - Valek shouted to me when I walked away a few steps. - Aren’t you going to talk about what you had with us?

“I won’t tell anyone,” I answered firmly.

Well, that's good! And when they pester you, tell these fools of yours that you saw the devil.

Okay, I'll tell you.

Well, goodbye.

Thick twilight lay over Prince-Ven as I approached the fence of my garden. A thin crescent moon appeared above the castle, and the stars lit up. I was about to climb the fence when someone grabbed my hand.

Vasya, friend! - my running comrade spoke in an excited whisper. - How are you?.. Darling!..

But, as you can see... And you all abandoned me!..

He looked down, but curiosity got the better of him, and he asked again:

What was there?

What! - I answered in a tone that did not allow doubt. - Of course, devils... And you are cowards.

And, waving off my confused comrade, I climbed onto the fence.

IV. The acquaintance continues

From then on, I was completely absorbed in my new acquaintance. In the evening, when I went to bed, and in the morning, when I got up, I only thought about the upcoming visit to the mountain. I was now wandering around the streets of the city with the sole purpose of seeing if the whole company, which Janusz characterized with the words “bad society”, was here; and if dark personalities were snooping around the market, I immediately ran through the swamp, up the mountain, to the chapel, having first filled my pockets with apples, which I could pick in the garden without prohibition, and delicacies that I always saved for my new friends.

Valek, who was generally very respectable and inspired me with respect with his manners as an adult, accepted these offerings simply and for the most part put them aside somewhere, saving them for his sister, but Marusya clasped her little hands every time, and her eyes lit up with a spark of delight; the girl’s pale face flashed with a blush, she laughed, and this laughter of our little friend reverberated in our hearts, rewarding us for the candies that we donated in her favor.

It was a pale, tiny creature, reminiscent of a flower that grew without the rays of the sun. Despite her four years, she still walked poorly, walking unsteadily with crooked legs and staggering like a blade of grass; her hands were thin and transparent; the head swayed on the thin neck, like the head of a field bell; her eyes sometimes looked so unchildishly sad and her smile so reminded me of my mother in recent days, when she used to sit opposite the open window and the wind moved her blond hair, that I myself felt sad and tears came to my eyes.

I couldn't help comparing her to my sister; They were the same age, but my Sonya was as round as a donut and as elastic as a ball. She ran so briskly when she got excited, she laughed so loudly, she always wore such beautiful dresses, and every day the maid wove a scarlet ribbon into her dark braids.

But my little friend almost never ran and laughed very rarely; when she laughed, her laughter sounded like the smallest silver bell, which can no longer be heard ten steps away. Her dress was dirty and old, there were no ribbons in her braid, but her hair was much larger and more luxurious than Sonya’s, and Valek, to my surprise, knew how to braid it very skillfully, which he did every morning.

I was a big tomboy. In the very first days, I brought my excitement into the company of my new acquaintances. It is unlikely that the echo of the old chapel has ever repeated such loud screams as at the time when I tried to stir up and lure Valek and Marusya into my games. However, this did not work out well. Valek looked at me and the girl seriously, and once I made her run around with me, he said:

No, she's about to cry.

Indeed, when I stirred her up and forced her to run, Marusya, hearing my steps, suddenly turned to me, raising her little hands above her head, as if for protection, looked at me with the helpless look of a slammed bird and began to cry loudly.

I was completely confused.

“You see,” said Valek, “she doesn’t like to play.”

He sat her down on the grass, picked flowers and threw them to her; She stopped crying and quietly sorted through the plants, said something to the golden buttercups, and raised blue bells to her lips. I also calmed down and lay down next to Valek near the girl.

Why is she like this? - I finally asked, pointing my eyes at Marusya.

Not happy? - Valek asked again and then said in the tone of a completely convinced man: - And this, you see, is from a gray stone.

“Yes,” the girl repeated, like a faint echo, “it’s from the gray stone.”

The gray stone sucked the life out of her,” Valek explained again, still looking at the sky. - That’s what Tyburtsy says... Tyburtsy knows well.

Yes,” the girl repeated again in a quiet echo, “Tyburtsy knows everything.”

I did not understand anything in these mysterious words; Valek’s conviction that Tyburtsy knew everything had an effect on me as well. I raised myself up on my elbow and looked at Marusya. She sat in the same position in which Valek had sat her, and was still sorting through the flowers; the movements of her thin hands were slow; the eyes stood out with deep blue on the pale face; long eyelashes were lowered. Looking at this tiny sad figure, it became clear to me that in the words of Tyburtius, although I did not understand their meaning, there was a bitter truth. Surely someone is sucking the life out of this strange girl who cries when others in her place laugh. But how can a gray stone do this?

It was a mystery to me, more terrible than all the ghosts of the old castle. Something shapeless, inexorable, hard and tough, like stone, was bending over the small head, sucking out of it the blush, the sparkle of the eyes and the liveliness of movements. “This must be what happens at night,” I thought, and a feeling of painfully painful regret squeezed my heart.

Under the influence of this feeling, I also moderated my playfulness. Applying to the quiet respectability of our lady, both Valek and I, having sat her down somewhere on the grass, collected flowers for her, multi-colored pebbles, caught butterflies, and sometimes made traps for sparrows out of bricks. Sometimes, stretching out on the grass next to her, they looked at the sky as the clouds floated high above the shaggy roof of the old chapel, told Marusa fairy tales or talked with each other.

These conversations every day more and more strengthened our friendship with Valek, which grew, despite the sharp contrast of our characters. He contrasted my impetuous playfulness with sad solidity and inspired me with respect with the independent tone with which he spoke of his elders. In addition, he often told me a lot of new things that I had not thought about before.

Hearing how he spoke about Tyburtia, as if about a comrade, I asked:

Tyburtsy is your father?

It must be father,” he answered thoughtfully.

He loves you?

Yes, he loves me,” he said much more confidently. - He takes care of me all the time, and, you know, sometimes he kisses me and cries...

“He loves me and cries too,” Marusya added with an expression of childish pride.

“But my father doesn’t love me,” I said sadly. - He never kissed me... He's not good.

“It’s not true, it’s not true,” Valek objected. - You do not understand. Tyburtsy knows better. He says that the judge is the best person in the city... He even sued one count... But suing a count is no joke.

Why? - Valek asked, somewhat puzzled. “Because the count is not an ordinary person... The count does what he wants, and then... the count has money; he would have given another judge money, and he would not have condemned him, but would have condemned the poor man.

Yes it's true. I heard the count shouting in our apartment: “I can buy and sell you all!”

What about the judge?

And his father tells him: “Get away from me!”

Well, there you go! And Tyburtsy says that he will not be afraid to drive away the rich man, and when old Ivanikha came to him with a crutch, he ordered a chair to be brought to her. That's what he is!

All this made me think deeply. Valek showed me a side of my father from which it had never occurred to me to look at him: Valek’s words touched a string of filial pride in my heart; I was pleased to listen to praise for my father, and even on behalf of Tyburtsy, who “knows everything”; but at the same time, a note of aching love, mixed with a bitter consciousness, trembled in my heart: my father never loved and will never love me the way Tyburtsy loves his children.

V. Among the “gray stones”

A few more days passed. Members of the “bad society” stopped coming to the city, and I wandered around the streets in vain, bored, waiting for them to appear so I could run to the mountain. I was completely bored, because not seeing Valek and Marusya was already a great deprivation for me. But one day, when I was walking with my head down along a dusty street, Valek suddenly put his hand on my shoulder.

Why did you stop coming to us? - he asked.

I'm afraid...Yours are not visible in the city.

Ah... I thought you were bored.

No, no!.. I, brother, will run now,” I hurried, “even the apples with me.”

At the mention of apples, Valek quickly turned to me, as if he wanted to say something, but did not say anything, but only looked at me with a strange look.

“Nothing, nothing,” he waved it off, seeing that I was looking at him expectantly. - Go straight up the mountain, and I’ll go somewhere - there’s something to do. I'll catch up with you on the road.

I walked quietly and often looked around, expecting Valek to catch up with me; however, I managed to climb the mountain and approached the chapel, but he was still not there. I stopped in bewilderment: in front of me there was only a cemetery, deserted and quiet.

I looked around. Where should I go now? Obviously, we have to wait for Valek. In the meantime, I began to walk between the graves, peering at them with nothing to do and trying to make out the erased inscriptions on the moss-covered tombstones. Staggering from grave to grave in this way, I came across a dilapidated crypt. Its roof had been thrown off or torn off by bad weather and was lying there. The door was boarded up. Out of curiosity, I placed an old cross against the wall and, climbing up it, looked inside. The tomb was empty, only in the middle of the floor was a window frame with glass, and through these glasses the dark emptiness of the dungeon yawned.

While I was looking at the tomb, wondering at the strange purpose of the window, a breathless and tired Valek ran up the mountain. He had a large bun in his hands, something was bulging in his bosom, and drops of sweat were running down his face.

Yeah! - he shouted, noticing me. - Here you are... If Tyburtsy saw you here, he would be angry! Well, now there’s nothing to do... I know you’re a good guy and you won’t tell anyone how we live. Let's come to us!

Where is this, how far away? - I asked.

But you'll see. Follow me.

He parted the honeysuckle and lilac bushes and disappeared into the greenery under the wall of the chapel; I followed him there. Between the bird cherry trunks I saw a rather large hole in the ground with earthen steps leading down. Valek went down there, inviting me to follow him, and after a few seconds we both found ourselves in the dark, underground. Taking my hand, Valek led me along some narrow damp corridor, and, turning sharply to the right, we suddenly entered a spacious dungeon.

I stopped at the entrance, amazed by the unprecedented sight. Two streams of light streamed sharply from above, standing out as stripes against the dark background of the dungeon; This light passed through two windows, one of which I saw in the floor of the crypt, the other, further away, was obviously built in the same way; the walls were made of stone. Large, wide columns rose massively from below and, spreading their stone arches in all directions, tightly closed upward with a vaulted ceiling.

Marusya was sitting under the window with a bunch of flowers, sorting them out, as usual. A stream of light fell on her blond head, flooding it all, but despite this, she somehow stood out faintly against the background of the gray stone as a strange and small foggy speck that seemed about to blur and disappear. When there, above, above the ground, clouds ran past, obscuring the sunlight, the walls of the dungeon sank completely into darkness, and then again stood out as hard, cold stones, closing in a tight embrace over the tiny figure of the girl. I involuntarily remembered Valek’s words about the “gray stone” that sucked the fun out of Marusya.

Outrigger! - Marusya quietly rejoiced when she saw her brother.

When she noticed me, a lively sparkle flashed in her eyes.

I gave her the apples, and Valek, breaking the bun, gave some to her. I shifted and shivered, feeling as if bound under the oppressive gaze of the gray stone.

Let’s leave... let’s leave here,” I tugged at Valek. - Take her away...

And the three of us rose from the dungeon. Valek was sadder and more silent than usual.

Did you stay in town to buy some bread? - I asked him.

Buy? - Valek grinned. - Where do I get the money from?

So you stole it?..

Stealing is not good,” I then said in sad thought.

All of us left... Marusya cried because she was hungry.

Yes, I'm hungry! - the girl repeated with pitiful simplicity.

I didn’t yet know what hunger was, but at the last words of the girl, something turned in my chest, and I looked at my friends, as if I was seeing them for the first time. Valek was still lying on the grass and thoughtfully watching the hawk soaring in the sky. And when I looked at Marusya, who was holding a piece of bread with both hands, my heart ached.

Why,” I asked with an effort, “why didn’t you tell me about this?”

That’s what I wanted to say, but then I changed my mind: you don’t have your own money.

So what? I would take some rolls from home.

How, slowly?

That means you would steal too.

I... with my father.

This is even worse! - Valek said with confidence. - I never steal from my father.

Well, I would have asked... They would have given it to me.

Well, maybe they would give it once - where can we stock up for all the beggars?

Are you... beggars? - I asked in a fallen voice.

Beggars! - Valek snapped gloomily.

I fell silent and after a few minutes began to say goodbye.

Leaving so soon? - asked Valek.

Yes, I'm leaving.

I left because that day I could no longer play with my friends as before, serenely. Although my love for Valek and Marusa did not become weaker, it was mixed with a sharp stream of regret that reached the point of heartache. At home I went to bed early. Burying myself in the pillow, I wept bitterly until sound sleep drove away my deep grief with its breath.

VI. Pan Tyburtsy appears on stage

Hello! And I thought you wouldn’t come again, that’s how Valek greeted me when I showed up on the mountain again the next day.

I understood why he said this.

No, I... I will always come to you,” I answered decisively, in order to put an end to this issue once and for all.

Valek noticeably cheered up, and we both felt freer.

Around noon, the sky frowned, a dark cloud moved in, and a downpour began to roar under the cheerful rumbles of thunder. At first I really didn’t want to go down into the dungeon, but then, thinking that Valek and Marusya live there permanently, I overcame the unpleasant feeling and went there with them. It was dark and quiet in the dungeon, but from above you could hear the echoing roar of a thunderstorm, as if someone was riding there in a huge cart along the pavement. After a few minutes I became familiar with the dungeon, and we listened cheerfully as the ground received wide streams of rain.

Let’s play blind man’s buff,” I suggested.

I was blindfolded; Marusya was ringing with the weak tinkling of her pathetic laughter and splashing on the stone floor with her clumsy little feet, and I pretended that I couldn’t catch her, when suddenly I came across someone’s wet figure and at that very moment I felt that someone grabbed my leg . A strong hand lifted me from the floor, and I hung upside down in the air. The blindfold fell off my eyes.

Tyburtsy, wet and angry, was even more terrifying because I was looking at him from below, holding my leg and wildly rolling his pupils.

What else is this, huh? - he asked sternly, looking at Valek. - You are here, I see, having fun... You have started a pleasant company.

Let me go! - I said, surprised that even in such an unusual position I could still speak, but Pan Tyburtsy’s hand only squeezed my leg even more tightly.

Pan Tyburtsy lifted me up and looked me in the face.

Hey-hey! Master Judge, if my eyes do not deceive me... Why did you deign to complain?

Let me go! - I said stubbornly. - Now let go! - And at the same time I made an instinctive movement, as if about to stamp my foot, but this only caused me to flutter in the air.

Tyburtsy laughed.

Wow! Master Judge deigns to be angry... Well, you don’t know me yet. I am Tyburtsy. I'll hang you over the fire and roast you like a pig.

Valek's desperate look seemed to confirm the idea of ​​the possibility of such a sad outcome. Fortunately, Marusya came to the rescue.

Don't be afraid, Vasya, don't be afraid! - she encouraged me, going up to the very feet of Tyburtsy. - He never roasts boys on fire... This is not true!

Tyburtsy quickly turned me around and put me on my feet; At the same time, I almost fell, as I felt dizzy, but he supported me with his hand and then, sitting down on a wooden stump, placed me between his knees.

And how did you get here? - he continued to interrogate. - How long ago?.. You speak! - he turned to Valek, since I didn’t answer anything.

A long time ago,” he replied.

How long ago?

Six days.

It seemed that this answer gave Pan Tyburtsy some satisfaction.

Wow, six days! - he spoke, turning me to face him. - Six days is a lot of time. And you still haven’t told anyone where you’re going?

No one,” I repeated.

Commendable!.. You can count on not talking and move on. However, I always considered you a decent fellow when I met you on the streets. A real “street person”, albeit a “judge”... Tell me, are you going to judge us?

He spoke quite good-naturedly, but still I felt deeply offended and therefore answered angrily:

I'm not a judge at all. I am Vasya.

One thing doesn’t interfere with the other: Vasya can also be a judge - not now, but later... Your father judges me, - well, someday you will judge... that’s him!

“I won’t judge Valek,” I objected gloomily. - Not true!

“He won’t,” Marusya also stood up, removing the terrible suspicion from me with complete conviction.

The girl trustingly pressed herself against the legs of this freak, and he affectionately stroked her blond hair with a sinewy hand.

Well, don’t say that in advance,” the strange man said thoughtfully, addressing me in such a tone as if he were speaking to an adult. - Everyone goes their own path, and who knows... maybe it’s good that your path runs through ours. It’s good for you, because it’s better to have a piece of a human heart in your chest instead of a cold stone, you understand?..

I didn’t understand anything, but still my eyes fixed on the strange man’s face; Pan Tyburtsy's eyes looked intently into mine.

Remember this well: if you tell your judge or even a bird that flies past you in the field about what you saw here, then if I were not Tyburtsy Drab, if I did not hang you in this fireplace by your feet and smoked ham from you.

I won't tell anyone... I... Can I come again?

Come, I give permission... on condition... However, I already told you about the ham. Remember!..

He let me go and stretched out with a tired look on a long bench that stood near the wall.

Take it over there,” he pointed to Valek at the large basket, which, upon entering, he left at the threshold, “and light a fire.” We will cook lunch today.

Now this was no longer the same man who had frightened me for a minute by rotating his pupils. He gave orders like the owner and head of the family, returning from work and giving orders to the household 1 .

1 Household- family members.

Valek and I quickly got to work. Then Valek, alone, with skillful hands, began to cook. Half an hour later, some brew was boiling in a pot, and while waiting for it to ripen, Valek placed a frying pan on which pieces of fried meat were smoking on a three-legged table.

Tyburtsy stood up.

Ready? - he said. - So that's great. Sit down, little one, with us: you've earned your lunch...

Tyburtsy held Marusya in his arms. She and Valek ate with greed, which clearly showed that the meat dish was an unprecedented luxury for them; Marusya even licked her greasy fingers. Tyburtsiy ate at a leisurely pace, obeying an irresistible need to talk. From the strange and confusing speech I only understood that the method of acquisition was not entirely ordinary, and I could not resist interjecting a question:

Did you take this... yourself?

“The fellow is not devoid of insight,” continued Tyburtsy. “However,” he suddenly turned to me, “you’re still stupid and don’t understand a lot.” But she understands: tell me, my Marusya, did you do well to bring you a roast?

Fine! - the girl answered, her turquoise eyes sparkling slightly. - Manya was hungry.

In the evening of that day, with a foggy head, I thoughtfully returned to my room. In a dark alley in the garden, I accidentally bumped into my father. He, as usual, walked gloomily back and forth. When I found myself next to him, he took me by the shoulder.

Where are you from?

I was walking…

He looked at me carefully, wanted to say something, but, waving his hand, he walked down the alley.

I lied almost for the first time in my life.

I was always afraid of my father, and now even more so. Now I carried within me a whole world of vague questions and sensations. Could he understand me? I trembled at the thought that he would ever find out about my acquaintance with “bad society,” but I was not able to change Valek and Marusya. If I had betrayed them by breaking my word, I would not have been able to raise my eyes to them out of shame when I met them.

VII. in autumn

Autumn was approaching. The harvest was underway in the field, the leaves on the trees were turning yellow. At the same time, our Marusya began to get sick.

She didn’t complain about anything, she just kept losing weight, her face kept turning pale, her eyes darkened and became larger, her eyelids lifted with difficulty. The girl spent most of her time in bed, and Valek and I exhausted all efforts to entertain her and amuse her, to evoke the quiet overflows of her weak laughter.

Now Marusya’s sad smile has become almost as dear to me as my sister’s smile; but here no one always pointed out to me my depravity, here I was needed - I felt that every time my appearance caused a blush of revival on the girl’s cheeks. Valek hugged me like a brother, and even Tyburtsy at times looked at the three of us with some strange eyes in which something shimmered, like a tear.

For a while the sky cleared again; The clouds rolled away, and sunny days began to shine over the drying land for the last time before the onset of winter. Every day we carried Marusya upstairs, and here she seemed to come to life; the girl looked around with wide open eyes, a blush lit up her cheeks; it seemed that the wind, blowing its fresh waves over her, was returning to her the particles of life stolen by the gray stones of the dungeon. But this did not last long...

Meanwhile, clouds also began to gather above my head. One day, when, as usual, I was walking along the alleys of the garden in the morning, I saw my father in one of them, and next to him old Janusz from the castle. The old man bowed obsequiously and said something, but the father stood with a sullen look, and a wrinkle of impatient anger was sharply visible on his forehead. Finally, he extended his hand, as if pushing Janusz out of his way, and said:

Go away! You're just an old gossip!

My heart trembled with foreboding. I realized that the conversation I overheard applied to my friends and, perhaps, also to me. Tyburtsy, to whom I told about this incident, made a terrible grimace.

Ugh, boy, what unpleasant news this is!.. Oh, damned old hyena!

His father drove him away,” I remarked as a form of consolation.

Your father, little one, is the best of all the judges in the world. He does not consider it necessary to poison the old toothless beast in his last den... But, lad, how can I explain this to you? Your father serves a master whose name is law. He has eyes and a heart only as long as the law sleeps on its shelves; When will this gentleman come down from there and say to your father: “Come on, judge, shouldn’t we take on Tyburtsy Drab or whatever his name is?” From that moment on, the judge immediately locks his heart with a key, and then the judge has such firm paws that the world would sooner turn in the other direction than Pan Tyburtsy would wriggle out of his hands... Do you understand, little one?.. The whole trouble is that I have Once upon a time there was some kind of clash with the law... that is, you know, an unexpected quarrel... oh, boy, it was a very big quarrel!

With these words, Tyburtsy stood up, took Marusya in his hands and, moving with her to the far corner, began to kiss her. But I remained in place and stood in one position for a long time, impressed by the strange speeches of a strange man.

VIII. Doll

The clear days passed, and Marusya felt worse again. She looked at all our tricks to keep her busy with indifference with her large, darkened and motionless eyes, and we had not heard her laugh for a long time. I began to carry my toys into the dungeon, but they entertained the girl only for a short time. Then I decided to turn to my sister Sonya.

Sonya had a large doll, with a brightly painted face and luxurious flaxen hair, a gift from her late mother. I had high hopes for this doll, and therefore, calling my sister to a side alley in the garden, I asked to give it to me for a while. I so convincingly asked her about this, so vividly described to her the poor, sick girl who never had her own toys, that Sonya, who at first only hugged the doll to herself, gave it to me and promised to play with other toys for two or three days. .

The effect of this elegant young lady on our patient exceeded all my expectations. Marusya, who had faded like a flower in autumn, seemed to come to life again. She hugged me so tightly, laughed so loudly, talking with her new friend... The little doll performed almost a miracle: Marusya, who had not left her bed for a long time, began to walk, leading her blond daughter behind her, and at times even ran, still splashing on the floor with weak legs.

But this doll gave me a lot of anxious moments. First of all, when I was carrying it in my bosom, heading up the mountain with it, on the road I came across old Janusz, who followed me for a long time with his eyes and shook his head. Then, two days later, the old nanny noticed the loss and began poking around in the corners, looking everywhere for the doll. Sonya tried to calm her down, but with her naive assurances that she didn’t need the doll, that the doll had gone for a walk and would soon return, she only aroused the suspicion that this was not a simple loss. The father did not know anything yet, but Janusz came to him again and was driven away - this time with even greater anger; however, that same day my father stopped me on my way to the garden gate and told me to stay at home. The next day the same thing happened again, and only four days later I got up early in the morning and waved over the fence while my father was still sleeping.

Things were bad on the mountain. Marusya fell ill again, and she felt even worse; her face glowed with a strange blush, her blond hair was scattered over the pillow; she didn't recognize anyone. Next to her lay the ill-fated doll, with pink cheeks and stupid sparkling eyes.

I told Valek my concerns, and we decided that the doll needed to be taken back, especially since Marusya wouldn’t notice it. But we were wrong! As soon as I took the doll out of the hands of the girl lying in oblivion, she opened her eyes, looked ahead with a vague look, as if not seeing me, not realizing what was happening to her, and suddenly began to cry quietly, but at the same time so pitifully, and an expression of such deep grief flashed in the emaciated face that I immediately, with fear, put the doll in its original place. The girl smiled, hugged the doll to herself and calmed down. I realized that I wanted to deprive my little friend of the first and last joy of her short life.

Valek looked at me timidly.

What will happen now? - he asked sadly.

Tyburtsy, sitting on a bench with his head sadly bowed, also looked at me with a questioning gaze. So I tried to look as nonchalant as possible and said:

Nothing! The nanny has probably already forgotten.

But the old woman did not forget. When I returned home this time, I again came across Janusz at the gate; I found Sonya with tear-stained eyes, and the nanny threw an angry, suppressive look at me and grumbled something with her toothless, muttering mouth.

My father asked me where I had gone, and, after listening carefully to the usual answer, he limited himself to repeating the order for me not to leave the house under any circumstances without his permission. The order was very decisive; I didn’t dare disobey him, but I also didn’t dare turn to my father for permission.

Four tedious days passed. I sadly walked around the garden and looked longingly towards the mountain, also expecting a thunderstorm that was gathering above my head. I didn’t know what would happen, but my heart was heavy. No one has ever punished me in my life; Not only did my father not lay a finger on me, but I never heard a single harsh word from him. Now I was tormented by a heavy premonition.

Finally I was called to my father, to his office. I entered and stood timidly at the ceiling. The sad autumn sun was peeping through the window. My father sat in his chair in front of my mother’s portrait and did not turn to me. I heard the alarming beating of my own heart.

Finally he turned. I raised my eyes to him and immediately lowered them to the ground. My father's face seemed scary to me. About half a minute passed, and during this time I felt a heavy, motionless, oppressive gaze on me.

Did you take your sister's doll?

These words suddenly fell on me so clearly and sharply that I shuddered.

Yes,” I answered quietly.

Do you know that this is a gift from your mother, which you should treasure like a shrine?.. Did you steal it?..

No,” I said, raising my head.

Why not? - the father screamed, pushing the chair away. - You stole it and demolished it!.. Who did you demolish it to?.. Speak!

He quickly came up to me and put a heavy hand on my shoulder. I raised my head with effort and looked up. The father's face was pale, his eyes burned with anger. I cringed all over.

I won't tell! - I answered quietly.

You say it, you say it!

I felt his hand tremble and lowered my head lower and lower; Tears fell one after another from my eyes onto the floor, but I kept repeating, barely audible:

No, I won’t tell... I will never, never tell you... No way!

At that moment, my father’s son spoke out in me. He would not have gotten a different answer from me through the most terrible torments. In my chest, in response to his threats, a barely conscious, offended feeling of an abandoned child and some kind of burning love for those who warmed me there, in the old chapel, rose.

The father took a deep breath. I shrank even more, bitter tears burned my cheeks. I was waiting.

At this critical moment, the sharp voice of Tyburtius suddenly rang out:

Hey-hey!.. I see my young friend in a very difficult situation.

His father met him with a gloomy and surprised look, but Tyburtsy withstood this gaze calmly. He was serious, did not grimace, and his eyes looked somehow especially sad.

Master judge! - he spoke softly. - You are a fair man... let the child go. God knows he has done no wrong, and if his heart goes out to my ragged poor fellows, he had better have me hanged, but I will not allow the boy to suffer for this. Here is your doll, little one!..

He untied the knot and took out the doll.

My father's hand holding my shoulder loosened. There was amazement in his face.

What does it mean? - he asked finally.

Let the boy go,” Tyburtsy repeated, and his wide palm lovingly stroked my bowed head. “You won’t get anything from him by threats, but meanwhile I will willingly tell you everything you want to know... Let’s go out, Mr. Judge, into another room.”

I was still standing in the same place when the office door opened and both interlocutors entered. I again felt someone’s hand on my head and shuddered. It was my father's hand, gently stroking my hair.

Tyburtsy took me in his arms and sat me, in the presence of my father, on his lap.

Come to us,” he said, “your father will let you say goodbye to my girl... She... she died.”

I looked up questioningly at my father. Now another person stood in front of me, but in this particular person I found something familiar that I had searched in vain for in him before. He looked at me with his usual thoughtful gaze, but now in this gaze there was a hint of surprise and, as it were, a question. It seemed as if the storm that had just swept over both of us had dissipated the heavy fog hanging over my father’s soul. And my father only now began to recognize in me the familiar features of his own son.

I trustingly took his hand and said:

I didn’t steal it... Sonya herself lent it to me...

Y-yes,” he answered thoughtfully, “I know... I’m guilty of you, boy, and you’ll try to forget it someday, won’t you?

I quickly grabbed his hand and began to kiss it. I knew that now he would never again look at me with those terrible eyes with which he had looked a few minutes before, and long-restrained love poured into my heart in a torrent.

Now I was no longer afraid of him.

Will you let me go to the mountain now? - I asked, suddenly remembering Tyburtsy’s invitation.

Y-yes... Go, go, boy,” he said affectionately, still with the same shade of bewilderment in his voice. “Yes, however, wait... please, boy, wait a little.”

He went into his bedroom and, a minute later, came out and thrust several pieces of paper into my hand.

Give this... Tyburtsiy... Say that I humbly ask him - do you understand?.., I humbly ask him - to take this money... from you... Do you understand?.. Now go, boy, go quickly.

I caught up with Tyburtsy already on the mountain and, out of breath, clumsily carried out my father’s instructions.

He humbly asks... father... - and I began to push the money given by my father into his hands. I didn't look him in the face. He took the money.

In the dungeon, in a dark corner, Marusya was lying on a bench. The word “death” does not yet have its full meaning for a child’s hearing, and bitter tears only now, at the sight of this lifeless body, squeezed my throat...

Conclusion

Soon after the events described, Tyburtsy and Valek completely unexpectedly disappeared, and no one could say where they were going now, just as no one knew where they came from to our city.

The old chapel has suffered greatly from time to time. First, her roof collapsed, pushing through the ceiling of the dungeon. Then landslides began to form around the chapel, and it became even darker; The owls howl even louder in it, and the lights on the graves on dark autumn nights flash with a blue ominous light.

Only the grave, fenced with a palisade, turned green with fresh turf every spring and was full of flowers. Sonya and I, and sometimes even my father, visited this grave; we loved to sit on it in the shade of a vaguely babbling birch tree, with the city in sight quietly sparkling in the fog. Here my sister and I read together, thought, shared our first young thoughts, the first plans of our winged and honest youth.

When the time came for us to leave our quiet hometown, here on the last day we both, full of life and hope, pronounced our vows over a small grave.

Analysis of Korolenko’s work “In Bad Society”

The genre of Korolenko’s work “In Bad Society” is a story.

The heroes of the story “In Bad Society” by Korolenko are residents of a provincial town called Knyazhye-Veno. The main character of the story “In Bad Society” is the boy Vasya, as well as his poor friends - Valek, Marusya and Pan Tyburtsy.

The storyline of the story is a series of events happening to one hero, Vasya. There are two storylines in this work: Vasya’s life line (mother’s death, loneliness, relationship with his father, vagrancy) and the life line of Tyburtsia’s family (struggle for existence, theft, life in the chapel, Marusya’s illness). The intersection of these lines leads to changes in Vasya’s life and in the life of this family.

The story tells of a judge's son who befriends beggar children living in a cave under the chapel. The main character Vasya has not yet thought about how hard life is for children from other - poor - strata of society. Once in the company of Valek and Marusya, he realized how difficult poverty and loneliness were.

Valek was nine years old, but he was “thin and thin as a reed.” Despite this, the boy behaved like an adult. Yes, this is not surprising - life itself taught him this. In addition, Valek had someone to take care of - his younger sister Marusa.

The girl was only four years old and she was seriously ill: “It was a pale, tiny creature that resembled a flower that had grown without the rays of the sun. Despite her four years, she still walked poorly, walking unsteadily with crooked legs and staggering like a blade of grass; her hands were thin and transparent; the head swayed on a thin neck, like the head of a field bell..."
It’s scary that Marusya had no hope of recovery - because the heroes had no money and no care from their elders.

To emphasize the contrast between children from a wealthy and poor society, the writer compares Marusya with Vasya’s sister, Sonya: “...Sonya was round, like a donut, and elastic, like a ball. She ran so briskly when she got excited, she laughed so loudly, she always wore such beautiful dresses, and every day the maid wove a scarlet ribbon into her dark braids.”

But, despite the difficult living conditions, Vasya and Marusya remained good people. Vasya immediately felt sympathy for them and a desire to be friends. The hero felt sorry and sympathized with his brother and sister, who had to steal in order not to die of hunger, who had to live in a dungeon that sucked the life out of them. Vasya was haunted by “a sharp stream of regret that reached the point of heartache.”

New friends not only revealed the best traits of his character in Vasya - the ability to be friends, sympathize, and the willingness to help others. Thanks to the “children of the dungeon,” the hero changed – for the better – his attitude towards his father. The boy thought that he did not love him. Valek’s words that the judge is the best man in the city made Vasya look at his father in a new way.

Thus, Korolenko’s story “In a Bad Society” teaches love, kindness and understanding. As I read it, I thought about how terrible loneliness is, how important it is to have your own home, how necessary it is to show compassion and provide support to those who need it.