Pink Pelican Voinovich read. Crimson Pelican

...At half past one in the morning I woke up and called Varvara, my wife, for help. I say: come on, help, pull me out. She had never done anything like this in her life and was not shown to her on TV in Dr. Golysheva’s medical program. She took tweezers, put on her glasses, and her hands were shaking, as if she was not going to have to remove a small insect, but rather a abdominal operation. Despite the fact that not only does she not have a medical education, but a drop of blood taken for analysis from a finger makes her faint. So she poked and poked at this creature with tweezers, then I poked at it myself, and it remained there as it was, although, I hope, we still caused her some inconvenience. Like those guys from the joke who, at the request of a neighbor, tried to slaughter a pig and in the end they didn’t kill it, but gave it a hearty beating.

They lifted Shura out of bed, but she didn’t. As soon as she looked, she raised her hands:

- No no no.

I'm asking;

- What no-no-no?

- I'm afraid of him.

- Whom?

- Yes, this. “She, without lowering her hands, points at him with her eyes.

I tell her:

- Why are you afraid of him? You lived in the village, probably chopped off the heads of chickens?

“Kuram,” he agrees, “he chopped.” - But this is not a chicken, this is...

And he can’t formulate what “this” is, but it’s clear, something terrible.

After Shura, Fyodor, who had been sleeping on a rug in the hallway, woke up and entered the room, yawning widely and shaking his shaggy head. He looked at us all carefully, not understanding what caused such a late commotion, did not understand anything, jumped onto the sofa, stretched out to his full length, put his muzzle on his front paws and began to wait for what would happen next. Fedor is our Airedale Terrier who recently celebrated his sixth birthday.

Having removed the women from the matter, I myself took up the tweezers, but again I acted awkwardly and achieved nothing, except that I crushed the insect into myself even deeper than it was sitting before. While I was working, Varvara plucked up courage and woke up a doctor friend on the phone. He, yawning into the phone, said that since we didn’t pull out this tick right away, the rest can only be entrusted to specialists. Because if a non-specialist leaves even a small part of this dirty trick in me, one can expect the most tragic consequences from it, including those mentioned above. And this happens on the night from Saturday to Sunday. Varvara and I are always so lucky: all the troubles happen on the night from Saturday to Sunday, when no one is working anywhere, and the doctors we know turn off their mobile phones and drink: therapists - alcohol brought from work, and surgeons - French cognac donated by patients . Varvara says we need to call an ambulance. I tried to object, but then agreed conditionally, assuming that the ambulance would not go because of the tick, but could give useful advice. Usually, as far as I have heard, this same ambulance, before it leaves, will ask you a hundred questions about the case and meaningless ones, what hurts, where and how, whether your feet are cold, whether your hands are turning blue and how old the patient is, in the sense that, Maybe he’s lived and had enough, is it worth burning gasoline for in vain, and the state has already overspent on pensions.

... If, as statistics say, the average life expectancy in our country is 64 years, then it is unfair for anyone to exceed this limit too much. Yes, of course, I worked, did something useful or harmful (depending on how you look at it), but how much can the state pay me?! So, assuming that Ambulance respects the state interest, it is better for it not to rush. However, youth is not a reason to rush. When he had a stroke, they didn’t go to my neighbor, thirty-year-old businessman Kolka Fedyakin, because he was crying out for help in slurred language, and the paramedic who took the call advised him not to be a hooligan, to sleep it off, and to drink pickle juice in the morning. But he didn’t take advantage of the morning’s advice, because dead people don’t drink brine. And Fedyakin’s uncle Boris Evseevich, when he was lying with a heart attack, was suggested: before needlessly bothering busy people, take validol or nitroglycerin, put a heating pad on your chest, stick on mustard plasters, and steam your legs. And then Varvara dialed 03, and there, to my surprise, they didn’t ask any unnecessary questions and didn’t bother to object. Less than half an hour had passed before a car with crosses on its damp sides, announcing the howl of a siren and illuminating them with blue flashes, flew into the yard. The very fact that it arrived so quickly convinced me that those who sent the car considered the matter worthy of sending it. On the threshold appeared a young blond woman in a blue jacket with the words “Ambulance” written on the back and a young man, tall, with short hair and a meaninglessly ironic smile on his flat face.

“Oh,” said the woman, “what a handsome man you have!” - and patted Fyodor, who trustingly approached her, on the withers. - Nothing to say, good. And immediately ready to be friends. Does he smell me like a dog?

And before inquiring about the reason for the call, she said that she also has a poodle dog, a mongrel cat, a husband Vanya and two children of primary school age. She said that her first and patronymic name is Zinaida Vasilyevna, but her husband, father-in-law and everyone else just call her Zinulya. Finally I remembered why she was here:

- So who has what happened here?

We vying with each other to explain. Despite the overall confusion, she understood everything. She examined my stomach and touched it - with her little finger and nail, manicured and sharply sharpened, as if specially prepared for pulling out ticks. I thought that she would immediately use this natural tool in action. But she pulled her finger away and admired the tick, just as she had admired the dog before:

And he no longer says to the tick, but to me:

- Well, get ready, let's go to the hospital.

- For what? - I was surprised.

- Well, of course. You don't want to die from encephalitis.

- Don't want.

- So we have to go.

- But why go? Can't you do something locally?

- What exactly?

- It's clear that. Remove the tick. Is this such a complicated matter? You probably have medical education and experience for this.

“I have everything, I’m an experienced paramedic. She's not a doctor, but she's also capable of something. But I don’t have sterile instruments. And without sterile instruments such things cannot be done. Do you agree with me?

I agreed, but dared to express bewilderment.

- So, sterile instruments - is that a problem?

- Well, of course, the problem is, you don’t want to die from blood poisoning. It seems to me that even at your age this is not very pleasant. Do you agree with me?

I again agreed that I didn’t want to die from blood poisoning either. To tell the truth, I actually don’t want anything, although I understand that for some reason I still have to. But preferably another time. Although next time it wouldn’t be desirable either.

“But still,” I tried to reason logically, “if you don’t have any sterile instruments with you, let’s make do with the home options.” Let's take a simple needle, boil it, and here you have a sterile instrument.

- Well, that's right. You will boil the needle. Will you also boil the floors, walls and ceilings? Can you create a sterile environment?

— That is, to keep the environment clean? So it doesn’t seem to be dirty here.

— Cleanliness is not yet sterility. Try running your finger across the floor, put it under a microscope, and you will see something that will make you faint.

I assumed that with a microscope you would find something everywhere.

She agreed: everywhere, but not that and not in such proportions. If in a real operating room...

“What does the operating room have to do with it,” I said, losing patience. “I don’t need an operation, but just to remove the tick.”

But she also began to get irritated.

- It seems to you that it’s just a tick. The microbe is a thousand times smaller, but if it gets into the wound, it will cause blood poisoning. And what after that? After this you are in the cemetery, I am in prison, and where are my children? In the orphanage. I got them from my first husband, but this one won’t mess with them. No, not that... He loves them while he's with me. But he will meet another woman and will immediately remember that the children are not his. So he’ll send him to an orphanage. And there they will be sold to the Americans for dismemberment. The law prohibits it, but they still sell it to them. Illegal. They transport it through Belarus. Do you think they are hunting our children? Because they are so kind? Yeah, good ones. They have it now, have you heard? Life expectancy has increased to almost a hundred years. And due to what? Three things (I began to curl my fingers): a balanced diet, stem cells and transplantation. Americans are rational people. Do you agree with me? For them, a healthy Russian child is a set of spare parts. It's like a car, you know? Skillful people steal, disassemble and then sell them piece by piece. Some need brake pads, some need a carburetor, tires, spark plugs or something else. So are we going or are we waiting for the symptoms of encephalitis? Are you feeling dizzy? Do you see double?

Naturally, it immediately seemed to me that I was spinning and seeing double.

“That means there’s nothing to discuss,” she concluded and, taking out a special mobile phone the size of a man’s shoe from her bag, she began to call some authority and explain quietly:

- Yes, a tick! There is redness and swelling. The patient complains of itching, dizziness, double vision and nausea.

She added this on her own about nausea, but as soon as she added it, it immediately seemed to me that I was feeling nauseous.

I was analyzing my feelings, and she went into a corner and whispered into her cell phone, covering it with her plump palm, something that was obviously not for my ears. This alarmed me, but still I still expect that they will tell her, they say, this is nonsense, don’t fool your head, do this and that and accept a new challenge. Apparently, they didn’t tell her anything like that, which means that what she whispered was treated with due attention. Having finished the conversation with the authorities, the paramedic said that they were ready to receive me at Sklif, that is, in the hospital named after Professor Sklifosovsky, where they take people with knife and gunshot wounds, suicides, poisoned by mushrooms, scalded with boiling water, burned in a fire, fallen from roofs, crushed in car accidents, cut out of iron and assembled piece by piece. And me with some kind of bug in my stomach? On the one hand, it’s inconvenient to deal with such nonsense, but on the other hand, if they’re carrying it, it means it’s not nonsense. But, imagining that Sklifosovsky was at least forty kilometers from me, I asked if it was possible to be somewhere closer. For example, in Totsk, it’s nearby, and it has a wonderful hospital.

- Oh, how capricious you are! — she sighed and began to call again. - Ale, ale, they don’t want to go to Sklif, they want to go to Totsk. - To me: - Our dispatcher is now calling Totsk. - To the dispatcher: - Ale, ale. What, no? - To me: - Totsk won’t take you. Their hospital is academic. They only accept academicians, professors, and doctors of science. But you can be accepted in Zapolsk.

The driver did not move during all this time. He stood at the door with the same expressionless, stupid grin and twirled a bunch of keys on his finger.

... Of course, I was offended that Totsk wouldn’t take me. In their opinion, I am not an academician. I didn't want to prove anything. Although to some extent I am still an academician. I am a member of two foreign academies and one of ours as an honorary member. But what to prove? An academic hospital for me too! I understand when there are oncology, pediatric, psychiatric, veterinary clinics for types of diseases or animals. And here they set up all sorts of medicines, separate for academicians, for ministers, for astronauts, for judges, for prosecutors or someone else. As if these people, who are not from the same parts as us, are composed or have special illnesses, academic, ministerial, prosecutorial. Their only occupational disease is hemorrhoids. Our state is the same as the Soviet one, and remains the same - class-hierarchical. For some it’s all, for others it’s less, for others it’s a big deal. Of course, I could still fight for Totsk, call somewhere, write a complaint, post it on the Internet, but while I’m doing this, encephalitis will develop... So what else is there? Zapolsk? And he is not academic. And isn’t it further than Sklif? The paramedic readily agreed:

- Well, that’s right, it’s not worth going to Zapolsk, especially since they won’t provide sterility either. What sterility is there? There are these cockroaches running around the walls. And in “Sklif” there is sterility. And also specially trained personnel, the necessary equipment and a laboratory. They will carefully remove your tick and immediately take it to the laboratory for analysis, and they will give you an injection. And, God willing, you will remain alive. Even if there is slight brain damage, it’s not a big deal; our entire country lives with brain damage. Do you agree with me? With such prospects, what can I do?

Okay, I say, let's go. Zinulya was happy, as if I had gotten along with her on her name day. I later thought that for some reason she needed to get to that particular area, so she seduced me in this direction. And having seduced her, she was delighted.

Vladimir Voinovich

Crimson Pelican

I was in the forest. I was picking mushrooms. I returned home, ate, slept, watched TV, and in the evening there was something itching on the right side of my stomach. I scratched it, forgot, it itched again, it reminded me. Around midnight, as I was going to bed, I decided to look in the mirror. Fathers! A round spot about five centimeters in diameter, like a three-color red-orange-yellow target, and right “in the top ten” - a black bold dot. I took a closer look - the dot was alive, moving its paws. Mite!

By the way, so that you can imagine, at least in general terms, the chronology, I’ll clarify that this story with the tick ended the other day, and began... The devil knows when it began, back when everything was quiet and peaceful with us, the country was preparing for the upcoming Olympics, we slowly, with crunching joints, straightened our knees, maintained good commercial relations with neighboring hostile fraternal countries and easily settled in the previously conquered territories. If I could have foreseen what would happen later, then I probably would not have written about a small insect, but the time was still peaceful, without noticeable events and therefore boring, so even any sharp ideas did not occur to anyone and all literature languished due to the virtual absence of plots. I will say more, at the time described, life seemed so prosperous that the need for more or less serious literature completely disappeared. People who are always happy are unhappy. And unhappy writers are those who live among happy people. And satirists even more so. I admit that if Saltykov-Shchedrin had resurrected and lived a little among us, then still relatively happy, then, having looked around and not finding anything interesting, he would have willingly returned to the world in which he had already become accustomed. I, too, at that time did not see any worthy topics around me and for this reason I focused on this unfortunate tick, having the excuse that although it was small, it caused me noticeable anxiety. Moreover, the very event of its introduction into my body became a rare physical contact with real life for me recently.

Hello, young literary scholar! It’s good that you decided to read the fairy tale “The Fox and the Pelican (Burmese Fairy Tale)”; in it you will find folk wisdom that has been edified by generations. Devotion, friendship and self-sacrifice and other positive feelings overcome all that oppose them: anger, deceit, lies and hypocrisy. It is very useful when the plot is simple and, so to speak, life-like, when similar situations arise in our everyday life, this contributes to better memorization. Folk legend cannot lose its vitality, due to the inviolability of such concepts as friendship, compassion, courage, bravery, love and sacrifice. Charm, admiration and indescribable inner joy produce the pictures drawn by our imagination when reading such works. It is amazing that with empathy, compassion, strong friendship and unshakable will, the hero always manages to resolve all troubles and misfortunes. And the thought comes, and behind it the desire, to plunge into this fabulous and incredible world, to win the love of a modest and wise princess. The fairy tale “The Fox and the Pelican (Burmese fairy tale)” can be read for free online countless times without losing your love and desire for this creation.

F or once in the same forest next door there was a Fox and a Pelican. They were completely different from each other - the Fox was cunning and boastful, the Pelican was simple-minded and modest. And they lived together amicably and cheerfully. One day they sat, as usual, and talked. Suddenly the Fox says to the Pelican:
- My friend Pelican! I have a bigger head, which means I'm smarter than you.
The pelican ignored her friend’s boastful speeches, but still harbored a grudge.
It’s hard to say how much time passed after that conversation, but somehow a rumor spread through the forest that a hunter had appeared. Fleeing from him, Pelican found nothing better than to hide in a hollow tree. The fox followed him.
They sit in a hollow tree, afraid to move. Whether they sat for a long time or for a short time, only the Pelican got tired of being silent, so he said:
- Listen, Fox, I remember you said that you were smarter than me. Why didn’t you come up with anything smarter than how to climb into my hollow?
Lisa didn’t answer. She just began to squeeze deeper, pushing the Pelican out.
The hunter noticed that the Fox and Peli-kan were hiding in the hollow. “First I will pull out the Pelican,” he decided and, grabbing the Pelican by the tail, threw it to the ground. But the Pelican pretended to be dead, and as soon as the hunter hesitated, he jumped up and was gone!
The hunter then pulled out the Fox and put her in a bag. And although her head was larger than that of the Pelican, she lacked intelligence! That's why she fell into a trap!

Once upon a time there lived a little boy. He was four years old. He lived with his mother and went to kindergarten. There he played with the children, was a little naughty, drank warm milk and was always cheerful. In kindergarten, the teacher read books to the children and taught them how to assemble construction sets from blocks. And then one day a boy climbed up a slide in the kindergarten yard, but suddenly fell. Fell down the hill. No one understood how this happened. Either someone accidentally pushed him, or he himself lost his balance, but only he fell from the slide to the ground. And then he didn’t remember anything.

When he woke up, he was in the hospital and his legs weren't moving.

- Mother! Look where my legs are,” he asked. There were legs, but he couldn't feel them. He could no longer walk. Doctors said he would remain disabled. There was a chance of recovery, but very small. The mother spent the night in the hospital and fed the boy, and he lay on the bed, turned to the wall and no longer smiled. One evening he asked:

– Mom, read me a book about Polina and the pelican!

- Polina and the pelican? I don't know such a book.

- Well, please read it!

Mom didn't know what to do. She answered:

- Sleep, son! Tomorrow I will try to find a book about Polina and the pelican.

The next day, mom went to the kindergarten where the boy went before his illness, and asked if there was such a book about Polina and the pelican.

No, we have never heard of such a book,” said the teacher.

– We read stories about Puss in Boots, about Winnie the Pooh, but we have never read about Polina and the pelican.

Then the mother returned to the hospital to her son and asked:

– Who told you this story?

The son replied:

– I don’t remember, but this story is very important! Tell me about Polina and the pelican, and I will get better!

Mom almost cried.

- Well, okay, close your eyes and I’ll tell you a story about the girl Polina and the pelican, listen.

– Yes, a pink pelican, exactly!

And the mother began to tell her son a story that she was making up right on the spot. She didn’t even notice how her son fell asleep. The next morning, a doctor and a nurse came to the boy’s room, making a round of patients.

- Look, his toes have begun to move! What a miracle!

And mom smiled. In the evening the boy asked his mother again:

– Tell me a new story about the girl Polina.

And mom again began to come up with a new story. And the boy fell fast asleep again, never having heard how the story ended. The next morning he was able to lift his leg a little. Mom just lit up.

- It helps! The story about Polina helps!

And she decided to write down the stories that she told the boy in a notebook that she always carried with her. And in the evening the boy asked her to tell a new story about the girl Polina. He asked:

– Why did Polina live only with her mother? Where was her dad?

Mom answered, after thinking:

– I don’t know exactly why, but I know for sure that my mother loved Polina very much. Very.

“Well, listen now,” and she began to tell a new story about the girl Polina.

This continued until the boy completely recovered. He was discharged from the hospital, and all the doctors said that a miracle had happened. And my mother thought that maybe these stories about the girl Polina helped her son recover. She copied all the stories into a notebook, bound them into a book and decided to donate this book to a children's hospital.

Now these stories are read in the evenings in the hospital to the children who are admitted there, and the children recover - some slower, some faster, but they definitely recover.

Now these stories are yours! Read them slowly, with a smile, and may your kids always be healthy!!!

The book is dedicated to the little boy Vladik, his mother and all the children of the world.

Polina and Pelican

Polina lay in her crib, wearing a pink lace nightgown and hugging a stuffed pelican. He was her most favorite toy. Pink plush pelican. Although he was quite large and took up a lot of space in the bed, Polina did not part with him. Polina was four years old. She had long, chocolate-colored hair with curls at the ends and chocolate-colored large round eyes with fluffy eyelashes. Everyone called Polina “little princess.”

Now she was lying in bed hugging the pelicans and waiting for that magical moment when sleep would take her and the stuffed pelican to a wonderful land, where Polina turned into a cat, a warrior, or a princess. She closed her eyes tighter, and within a minute her journey began.

She found herself on the shore of a large pond. Polina heard the croaking of frogs and the chattering of some bird. Polina looked into the motionless mirror of the pond. There she saw her reflection - it was a pink pelican.

“Yeah,” the girl thought.

– Now I have become a pelican, a pink pelican.

She tried to open her large, pinkish-tan wings. They were large and quite heavy. Her eyes became small in her sleep, and her nose protruded strongly forward. Under the bow hung a large net for catching fish.

Polina the pelican entered the well-aimed pond up to her chest, opened her big nose and scooped up water from the pond. The nose closed, and water began to pour out through small holes in the mesh hanging under the nose. In her mouth, or rather in her nose, Polina felt a tickling and fluttering sensation. There lay a small fish and a frog. Polina deftly threw back her head, and her easy prey rolled into the pelican’s belly. Polina was delighted: now she could get her own food! “And you don’t need to ask mom! Catch your own frogs and fish - that’s great!” She even opened her wings again and flapped them.

Suddenly she wanted to fly. She didn't know how, but she decided to try. She spread her wings and began to push off from the water with her webbed feet as hard as she could. At first nothing worked, and she tried several times to rise at least a little above the surface of the pond, but fell down again and again. Then a side wind suddenly blew in, and she began to rise upward easily and effortlessly.

To complete the picture of myself and my family, I will add this to the above. My children from my first marriage, son Danila and daughter Lyudmila, grew up and moved away in different directions. In Berlin, he changed journalism to business, owns a large trucking office, drives trucks to Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and Kazakhstan and earns very good money, and his daughter married a successful American lawyer, or, as she says, a lawyer, and lives in the city of Lexington , Kentucky, or, again, as they say, Kentucky. My current family is me, my wife Varvara, housekeeper Shura and, of course, Fedor. Semigudilov believes that I named the dog that way for Russophobic reasons, because, as it seems to him, only a person who hates or despises Russians can give dogs Russian human names. Although this is utter nonsense, because, firstly, the name Fedor, as well as Theodor, is of Greek origin and means “God’s gift,” and because, secondly, not Russophobes, but the most Russian people have long called cats are Vaskas, goats are Mashkas, and boars are Borkas. And the dog got this name because, it seems to me, he looks like my cousin Fedka, who is also fat, kind and curly-haired and is not offended by the existence of his four-legged namesake. Fedor (not a brother, but a dog) has a super sense of my approach. When I return from the city, he senses this in advance, shows noticeable anxiety, if possible, runs away from the yard and rushes to the barrier at the entrance to the village to meet me. Somehow he distinguishes my car from others and minces after it, wagging his stubby tail.

– How does he recognize your car? – Shura is surprised.

“By number,” I answer.

- Yah! - she exclaims, but, having a high opinion of Fyodor’s intellectual abilities, she is inclined to believe.

Shura ended up with us when she escaped from the Tambov village, where she had been beaten all her life. First, for any offense and just for the sake of warning, she was flogged by her drunken father with a belt, then because she turned out to be infertile, she was raised with his fists by her husband, also drunk. From time to time he would “sut up” and not drink, but then he would become angrier and hit even more. Shura endured everything, not even imagining that she could just leave, but she was lucky: one day her husband, drunk, got hit by a bus. But by this time, her son Valentin, conceived through drunkenness, had grown up and also began to beat her, from whom she ran away, leaving him everything she had, including a house and a cow. She doesn’t like to talk about her son, but she remembers her husband with hatred and thanks the driver of the bus who ran over him.

When she appeared with us, at first she behaved very timidly, she was afraid to ask an extra question and show that she didn’t know something. Her first task was to prepare breakfast for my wife and me. The night before, Varvara told her to boil two eggs in a bag. In the morning we got up, there was no breakfast, Shura met us, confused, and reported that she had searched the entire kitchen, but could not find the bags anywhere.

In the end, she took root with us, softened, but for a long time she could not get rid of old fears. Sometimes I would just call her: “Shura!” – she shudders, looks at me, and I see fear in her eyes. She is afraid that she did something wrong and will now be physically punished. Sometimes, however, one is afraid for good reason. One day, entering my office, I found her standing on a chair and using a wet cloth trying to wipe off Polenov’s painting “Overgrown Pond,” which was hanging above my desk, not the original, of course, but very good.

- What are you doing?! – I shouted.

She slowly slid to the floor, pale, looking at me doomedly, and her lips were trembling.

Years later, having become more accustomed to me, she admitted that she thought that I would beat her.

Shura has been living with us for more than six years. We gave her a room on the second floor with a separate toilet and shower. There she set up a nightstand with a table lamp. There is an icon on her bedside table, a lithograph on the wall - some kind of castle and a pond with swans. We gave her an old TV, she watches it in her free time. Her favorite programs used to be “Fashionable Sentence” and “Let’s Get Married,” but recently she began to show interest in political talk shows, which she watches, but does not seem to express an attitude towards them. In general, she is quiet, taciturn, and neat. She seems to have no personal life. He goes for a walk with Fedor. For some time now I began to attend church. Her father, as it turned out, was a member of the CPSU and even the secretary of the state farm party committee, but secretly he himself was baptized and baptized his children, which did not stop him from still drinking a lot and torturing his loved ones.

I struggle with Shura because she always tries to put things in order for me, rearranges my things, folds my papers in my absence in such a way that later I can’t figure out where everything is, and there’s no way to wean her off this.

Our former housekeeper Antonina constantly interfered in my conversations with my wife. Whatever we talked about - about life, politics, economics, literature, about everything she had her own opinion, which, however, always coincided with mine. This one never interferes, she only listens as we discuss some book, film, theater production, television program, shake the bones of our acquaintances, curse the authorities, or curse ourselves. He listens, sometimes grins at some thought of his own, but does not engage in conversation.

In general, I thought that she had no opinion about anything, but one day, looking into her closet, I saw on her bedside table next to the icon depicting the Mother of God with the Child, there was a photograph of Perligos of the same size. Naturally, I couldn’t resist asking where, supposedly, and why.

- And what not? – she asked.

- Yes please, but why do you need it?

- But he’s good.

– What’s good about him?

– He’s rooting for Russia.

Another time I saw on her bedside table a book by Harold Evseev, our famous “patriot,” “The Origins of Russian Judeo-Masonry.” When I asked who gave her this rubbish, she said: Semigudilov.

I didn’t like it, and I told Varvara that it was time to change the housekeeper.

But Varvara came decisively to Shura’s defense, convincing me that she was just a fool, but an honest fool. Antonina stole from us a little, but this one hasn’t been caught doing anything like that yet. She fulfills her duties, the house is always clean, the windows are washed, the laundry is washed, dinner is prepared, and her views do not matter at all, especially since in reality she has no views.