Small prose to read by heart. The best prose texts for memorizing (middle school age)

V. Rozov “Wild Duck” from the series “Touching War”)

The food was bad, I was always hungry. Sometimes food was given once a day, and then in the evening. Oh, how I wanted to eat! And so on one of these days, when dusk was already approaching, and there was not yet a crumb in our mouths, we, about eight soldiers, sat on the high grassy bank of a quiet river and almost whined. Suddenly we see him without his gymnast. Holding something in his hands. Another of our comrades is running towards us. He ran up. Radiant face. The package is his tunic, and something is wrapped in it.

Look! – Boris exclaims triumphantly. He unfolds the tunic, and in it... is a live wild duck.

I see: sitting, hiding behind a bush. I took off my shirt and - hop! Have food! Let's fry it.

The duck was weak and young. Turning her head from side to side, she looked at us with amazed beady eyes. She simply could not understand what kind of strange, cute creatures surrounded her and looked at her with such admiration. She did not struggle, did not quack, did not strain her neck to slip out of the hands that held her. No, she looked around gracefully and curiously. Beautiful duck! And we are rough, uncleanly shaven, hungry. Everyone admired the beauty. And a miracle happened, as in good fairy tale. Somehow he simply said:

Let's go!

Several logical remarks were thrown, like: “What’s the point, there are eight of us, and she’s so small,” “More messing around!”, “Borya, bring her back.” And, no longer covering it with anything, Boris carefully carried the duck back. Returning, he said:

I let her into the water. She dove. I didn’t see where she surfaced. I waited and waited to look, but I didn’t see it. It's getting dark.

When life gets me down, when you start cursing everyone and everything, you lose faith in people and you want to scream, like I once heard the cry of one very famous person: “I don’t want to be with people, I want with dogs!” - in these moments of disbelief and despair, I remember the wild duck and think: no, no, you can believe in people. This will all pass, everything will be fine.

They may tell me; “Well, yes, it was you, intellectuals, artists, everything can be expected about you.” No, during the war everything got mixed up and turned into one whole - single and invisible. At least, the one where I served. There were two thieves in our group who had just been released from prison. One proudly told how he managed to steal a crane. Apparently he was talented. But he also said: “Let go!”

______________________________________________________________________________________

Parable about life - Life values

Once, one sage, standing in front of his students, did the following. He took a large glass vessel and filled it to the brim with large stones. Having done this, he asked the disciples if the vessel was full. Everyone confirmed that it was full.

Then the sage took a box of small pebbles, poured it into a vessel and gently shook it several times. The pebbles rolled into the gaps between the large stones and filled them. After this, he again asked the disciples if the vessel was now full. They again confirmed the fact - it is full.

And finally, the sage took a box of sand from the table and poured it into the vessel. Sand, of course, filled the last gaps in the vessel.

Now,” the sage addressed the students, “I would like you to be able to recognize your life in this vessel!”

Large stones represent important things in life: your family, your loved one, your health, your children - those things that, even without everything else, can still fill your life. Small pebbles represent less important things, such as your job, your apartment, your house or your car. Sand symbolizes the little things in life, the hustle and bustle of everyday life. If you fill your vessel with sand first, there will be no room left for larger stones.

It’s the same in life - if you spend all your energy on small things, then there will be nothing left for big things.

Therefore, pay attention first of all to important things - find time for your children and loved ones, take care of your health. You will still have enough time for work, for home, for celebrations and everything else. Watch your big stones - only they have a price, everything else is just sand.

A. Green. Scarlet Sails

She sat with her legs tucked up and her arms around her knees. Leaning carefully towards the sea, she looked at the horizon big eyes, in which there is nothing adult left, through the eyes of a child. Everything she had been waiting for so long and passionately was happening there - at the end of the world. She saw an underwater hill in the land of distant abysses; climbing plants flowed upward from its surface; Among their round leaves, pierced at the edge by a stem, fanciful flowers shone. The upper leaves glittered on the surface of the ocean; those who knew nothing, as Assol knew, saw only awe and brilliance.

A ship rose from the thicket; he surfaced and stopped in the very middle of dawn. From this distance he was visible as clear as clouds. Scattering joy, he burned like wine, rose, blood, lips, scarlet velvet and crimson fire. The ship went straight to Assol. The wings of foam fluttered under the powerful pressure of its keel; Already, having stood up, the girl pressed her hands to her chest, when a wonderful play of light turned into a swell; the sun rose, and the bright fullness of the morning tore the covers off everything that was still basking, stretching on the sleepy earth.

The girl sighed and looked around. The music fell silent, but Assol was still in the power of its sonorous choir. This impression gradually weakened, then became a memory and, finally, just fatigue. She lay down on the grass, yawned and, blissfully closing her eyes, fell asleep - truly, soundly, like a young nut, sleep, without worries and dreams.

She was awakened by a fly wandering over her bare foot. Restlessly turning her leg, Assol woke up; sitting, she pinned up her disheveled hair, so Gray's ring reminded her of herself, but considering it nothing more than a stalk stuck between her fingers, she straightened them; Since the obstacle did not disappear, she impatiently raised her hand to her eyes and straightened up, instantly jumping up with the force of a spraying fountain.

Gray's radiant ring shone on her finger, as if on someone else's - she could not recognize it as hers at that moment, she did not feel her finger. - “Whose thing is this? Whose joke? - she quickly cried. - Am I dreaming? Maybe I found it and forgot?” Grasping the right hand with her left hand, on which there was a ring, she looked around in amazement, torturing the sea and green thickets with her gaze; but no one moved, no one hid in the bushes, and in the blue, far-illuminated sea there was no sign, and a blush covered Assol, and the voices of the heart said a prophetic “yes.” There were no explanations for what had happened, but without words or thoughts she found them in her strange feeling, and the ring already became close to her. Trembling, she pulled it off her finger; holding it in a handful like water, she examined it - with all her soul, with all her heart, with all the jubilation and clear superstition of youth, then, hiding it behind her bodice, Assol buried her face in her palms, from under which a smile burst uncontrollably, and, lowering her head, slowly I went the opposite way.

So, by chance, as people who can read and write say, Gray and Assol found each other in the morning summer day, full of inevitability.

"A note". Tatyana Petrosyan

The note looked most harmless.

According to all gentlemanly laws, it should have revealed an inky face and a friendly explanation: “Sidorov is a goat.”

So Sidorov, without suspecting anything bad, instantly unfolded the message... and was dumbfounded.

Inside, in large, beautiful handwriting, it was written: “Sidorov, I love you!”

Sidorov felt mockery in the roundness of the handwriting. Who wrote this to him?

(As usual they grinned. But this time they didn’t.)

But Sidorov immediately noticed that Vorobyova was looking at him without blinking. It doesn’t just look like that, but with meaning!

There was no doubt: she wrote the note. But then it turns out that Vorobyova loves him?!

And then Sidorov’s thought reached a dead end and fluttered helplessly, like a fly in a glass. WHAT DOES LOVES MEAN??? What consequences will this entail and what should Sidorov do now?..

“Let’s think logically,” Sidorov reasoned logically. “What, for example, do I love? Pears! I love it, which means I always want to eat it...”

At that moment, Vorobyova turned to him again and licked her bloodthirsty lips. Sidorov went numb. What caught his eye were her long uncut... well, yes, real claws! For some reason I remembered how in the buffet Vorobyov greedily gnawed at a bony chicken leg...

“You need to pull yourself together,” Sidorov pulled himself together. (My hands turned out to be dirty. But Sidorov ignored the little things.) “I love not only pears, but also my parents. However, there is no question of eating them. Mom bakes sweet pies. Dad often carries me around his neck. And I love them for that..."

Then Vorobyova turned around again, and Sidorov thought with sadness that he would now have to bake sweet pies for her all day long and carry her to school around his neck in order to justify such a sudden and crazy love. He took a closer look and discovered that Vorobyova was not thin and would probably not be easy to wear.

“All is not lost yet,” Sidorov did not give up. “I also love our dog Bobik. Especially when I train him or take him out for a walk...” Then Sidorov felt stuffy at the thought that Vorobyov could make him jump for every pie, and then he will take you for a walk, holding the leash tightly and not allowing you to deviate either to the right or to the left...

“...I love the cat Murka, especially when you blow right into her ear...” Sidorov thought in despair, “no, that’s not it... I like to catch flies and put them in a glass... but this is too much... I love toys that you can break and see what's inside..."

The last thought made Sidorov feel unwell. There was only one salvation. He hastily tore a piece of paper out of the notebook, pursed his lips resolutely and in firm handwriting wrote the menacing words: “Vorobyova, I love you too.” Let her be scared.

________________________________________________________________________________________

The candle was burning. Mike Gelprin

The bell rang when Andrei Petrovich had already lost all hope.

Hello, I'm following an ad. Do you give literature lessons?

Andrei Petrovich peered at the videophone screen. A man in his late thirties. Strictly dressed - suit, tie. He smiles, but his eyes are serious. Andrei Petrovich’s heart sank; he posted the ad online only out of habit. There were six calls in ten years. Three got the wrong number, two more turned out to be insurance agents working the old fashioned way, and one confused literature with a ligature.

“I give lessons,” Andrei Petrovich said, stuttering with excitement. - N-at home. Are you interested in literature?

“Interested,” the interlocutor nodded. - My name is Max. Let me know what the conditions are.

“For nothing!” - Andrei Petrovich almost burst out.

“Pay is hourly,” he forced himself to say. - By agreement. When would you like to start?

I, actually... - the interlocutor hesitated.

Let’s do it tomorrow,” Maxim said decisively. - Will ten in the morning suit you? I take the kids to school by nine and then I'm free until two.

“It will work,” Andrei Petrovich was delighted. - Write down the address.

Tell me, I'll remember.

That night Andrei Petrovich did not sleep, walked around the tiny room, almost a cell, not knowing what to do with his hands shaking from anxiety. For twelve years now he had been living on a beggar's allowance. From the very day he was fired.

“You are too narrow a specialist,” said the director of the lyceum for children with humanitarian inclinations, hiding his eyes. - We appreciate you as experienced teacher, but here is your subject, alas. Tell me, do you want to retrain? The lyceum could partially pay the cost of training. Virtual ethics, the basics of virtual law, the history of robotics - you could very well teach this. Even cinema is still quite popular. Of course, he doesn’t have much time left, but for your lifetime... What do you think?

Andrei Petrovich refused, which he later regretted. It was not possible to find a new job, literature remained in a few educational institutions, the last libraries were closed, philologists, one after another, retrained in all sorts of different ways. For a couple of years he visited the thresholds of gymnasiums, lyceums and special schools. Then he stopped. I spent six months taking retraining courses. When his wife left, he left them too.

The savings quickly ran out, and Andrei Petrovich had to tighten his belt. Then sell the aircar, old but reliable. An antique set left over from my mother, with things behind it. And then... Andrei Petrovich felt sick every time he remembered this - then it was the turn of the books. Ancient, thick, paper ones, also from my mother. Collectors gave good money for rarities, so Count Tolstoy fed him for a whole month. Dostoevsky - two weeks. Bunin - one and a half.

As a result, Andrei Petrovich was left with fifty books - his favorite ones, re-read a dozen times, those that he could not part with. Remarque, Hemingway, Marquez, Bulgakov, Brodsky, Pasternak... The books stood on a bookcase, occupying four shelves, Andrei Petrovich wiped dust from the spines every day.

“If this guy, Maxim,” Andrei Petrovich thought randomly, nervously pacing from wall to wall, “if he... Then, perhaps, it will be possible to buy Balmont back. Or Murakami. Or Amadou."

It’s nothing, Andrei Petrovich suddenly realized. It doesn't matter whether you can buy it back. He can convey, this is it, this is the only important thing. Hand over! To convey to others what he knows, what he has.

Maxim rang the doorbell at exactly ten o'clock, every minute.

Come in,” Andrei Petrovich began to fuss. - Take a seat. Here, actually... Where would you like to start?

Maxim hesitated and carefully sat down on the edge of the chair.

Whatever you think is necessary. You see, I'm a layman. Full. They didn't teach me anything.

Yes, yes, of course,” Andrei Petrovich nodded. - Like everyone else. Literature has not been taught in secondary schools for almost a hundred years. And now they no longer teach in special schools.

Nowhere? - Maxim asked quietly.

I'm afraid not anywhere anymore. You see, at the end of the twentieth century a crisis began. There was no time to read. First for children, then the children grew up, and their children no longer had time to read. Even more time than parents. Other pleasures have appeared - mostly virtual. Games. All sorts of tests, quests... - Andrei Petrovich waved his hand. - Well, and of course, technology. Technical disciplines began to supplant the humanities. Cybernetics, quantum mechanics and electrodynamics, high energy physics. And literature, history, geography faded into the background. Especially literature. Are you following, Maxim?

Yes, please continue.

In the twenty-first century, books were no longer printed; paper was replaced by electronics. But also in electronic version The demand for literature fell rapidly, several times in each new generation compared to the previous one. As a result, the number of writers decreased, then there were none at all - people stopped writing. Philologists lasted a hundred years longer - due to what was written in the previous twenty centuries.

Andrei Petrovich fell silent and wiped his suddenly sweaty forehead with his hand.

It’s not easy for me to talk about this,” he finally said. - I realize that the process is natural. Literature died because it did not get along with progress. But here are the children, you understand... Children! Literature was what shaped minds. Especially poetry. That which determined a person’s inner world, his spirituality. Children grow up soulless, that’s what’s scary, that’s what’s terrible, Maxim!

I came to this conclusion myself, Andrei Petrovich. And that is why I turned to you.

Do you have children?

Yes,” Maxim hesitated. - Two. Pavlik and Anechka are the same age. Andrey Petrovich, I just need the basics. I will find literature on the Internet and read it. I just need to know what. And what to focus on. You learn me?

Yes,” Andrei Petrovich said firmly. - I’ll teach you.

He stood up, crossed his arms over his chest, and concentrated.

Pasternak,” he said solemnly. - Chalk, chalk all over the earth, to all limits. The candle was burning on the table, the candle was burning...

Will you come tomorrow, Maxim? - Andrei Petrovich asked, trying to calm the trembling in his voice.

Definitely. Only now... You know, I work as a manager for a wealthy married couple. I manage the household, business, and balance the bills. My salary is low. But I,” Maxim looked around the room, “can bring food.” Some things, perhaps household appliances. On account of payment. Will it suit you?

Andrei Petrovich involuntarily blushed. He would be happy with it for nothing.

Of course, Maxim,” he said. - Thank you. I'm waiting for you tomorrow.

“Literature is not only what is written about,” said Andrei Petrovich, walking around the room. - This is also how it is written. Language, Maxim, is the very tool that great writers and poets used. Listen here.

Maxim listened intently. It seemed that he was trying to remember, to learn the teacher’s speech by heart.

Pushkin,” said Andrei Petrovich and began to recite.

"Tavrida", "Anchar", "Eugene Onegin".

Lermontov "Mtsyri".

Baratynsky, Yesenin, Mayakovsky, Blok, Balmont, Akhmatova, Gumilyov, Mandelstam, Vysotsky...

Maxim listened.

Aren't you tired? - asked Andrei Petrovich.

No, no, what are you talking about? Please continue.

The day gave way to a new one. Andrei Petrovich perked up, awakened to life, in which meaning suddenly appeared. Poetry was replaced by prose, which took much more time, but Maxim turned out to be a grateful student. He caught it on the fly. Andrei Petrovich never ceased to be amazed at how Maxim, who at first was deaf to the word, not perceiving, not feeling the harmony embedded in the language, comprehended it every day and knew it better, deeper than the previous one.

Balzac, Hugo, Maupassant, Dostoevsky, Turgenev, Bunin, Kuprin.

Bulgakov, Hemingway, Babel, Remarque, Marquez, Nabokov.

Eighteenth century, nineteenth, twentieth.

Classics, fiction, fantasy, detective.

Stevenson, Twain, Conan Doyle, Sheckley, Strugatsky, Weiner, Japrizo.

One day, on Wednesday, Maxim did not come. Andrei Petrovich spent the whole morning waiting, convincing himself that he could get sick. I couldn't, I whispered inner voice, persistent and absurd. Scrupulous, pedantic Maxim could not. He has never been a minute late in a year and a half. And then he didn’t even call. By evening, Andrei Petrovich could no longer find a place for himself, and at night he never slept a wink. By ten in the morning he was completely exhausted, and when it became clear that Maxim would not come again, he wandered to the videophone.

The number has been disconnected from service,” said a mechanical voice.

The next few days passed like one bad dream. Even my favorite books did not save me from acute melancholy and a newly emerging feeling of worthlessness, which Andrei Petrovich did not remember for a year and a half. To call hospitals, morgues, there was an obsessive buzzing in my temple. So what should I ask? Or about whom? Didn’t a certain Maxim, about thirty years old, excuse me, I don’t know his last name?

Andrei Petrovich got out of the house outside when he was in four walls It became more unbearable.

Ah, Petrovich! - old man Nefyodov, a neighbor from below, greeted. - Long time no see. Why don’t you go out? Are you ashamed or something? So it seems like you have nothing to do with it.

In what sense am I ashamed? - Andrei Petrovich was dumbfounded.

Well, what is this, yours,” Nefyodov ran the edge of his hand across his throat. - Who came to see you. I kept wondering why Petrovich, in his old age, got involved with this public.

What are you about? - Andrei Petrovich felt cold inside. - With what audience?

It is known which one. I see these little darlings right away. I think I worked with them for thirty years.

With whom with them? - Andrei Petrovich begged. -What are you even talking about?

Don't you really know? - Nefyodov was alarmed. - Look at the news, they are talking about it everywhere.

Andrei Petrovich did not remember how he got to the elevator. He went up to the fourteenth and with shaking hands fumbled for the key in his pocket. On the fifth attempt, I opened it, trotted over to the computer, connected to the network, and scrolled through the news feed. My heart suddenly sank with pain. Maxim looked from the photo, the lines of italics under the photo blurred before his eyes.

“Caught by the owners,” Andrei Petrovich read from the screen with difficulty focusing his vision, “of stealing food, clothing and household appliances. Home robot tutor, DRG-439K series. Control program defect. He stated that he independently came to the conclusion about childhood lack of spirituality, which he decided to fight. Unauthorizedly taught children subjects outside the school curriculum. He hid his activities from his owners. Withdrawn from circulation... In fact, disposed of.... The public is concerned about the manifestation... The issuing company is ready to bear... A specially created committee decided...".

Andrei Petrovich stood up. On stiff legs he walked to the kitchen. He opened the cupboard and on the bottom shelf stood an open bottle of cognac that Maxim had brought as payment for his tuition fees. Andrei Petrovich tore off the cork and looked around in search of a glass. I couldn’t find it and tore it out of my throat. He coughed, dropped the bottle, and staggered back against the wall. His knees gave way and Andrei Petrovich sank heavily to the floor.

Down the drain, came the final thought. Everything is down the drain. All this time he trained the robot.

A soulless, defective piece of hardware. I put everything I have into it. Everything that makes life worth living. Everything he lived for.

Andrei Petrovich, overcoming the pain that grabbed his heart, stood up. He dragged himself to the window and closed the transom tightly. Now a gas stove. Open the burners and wait half an hour. That's all.

The doorbell rang and caught him halfway to the stove. Andrei Petrovich, gritting his teeth, moved to open it. Two children stood on the threshold. A boy of about ten years old. And the girl is a year or two younger.

Do you give literature lessons? - the girl asked, looking from under her bangs falling into her eyes.

What? - Andrei Petrovich was taken aback. - Who are you?

“I’m Pavlik,” the boy took a step forward. - This is Anya, my sister. We are from Max.

From... From whom?!

From Max,” the boy repeated stubbornly. - He told me to convey it. Before he... what's his name...

Chalk, chalk all over the earth to all limits! - the girl suddenly shouted loudly.

Andrei Petrovich grabbed his heart, swallowing convulsively, stuffed it, pushed it back into his chest.

Are you kidding? - he said quietly, barely audible.

The candle was burning on the table, the candle was burning,” the boy said firmly. - He told me to convey this, Max. Will you teach us?

Andrei Petrovich, clinging to the door frame, stepped back.

“Oh my God,” he said. - Come in. Come in, children.

____________________________________________________________________________________

Leonid Kaminsky

Composition

Lena sat at the table and did her homework. It was getting dark, but from the snow that lay in drifts in the yard, it was still light in the room.
In front of Lena lay an open notebook, in which only two phrases were written:
How I help my mother.
Composition.
There was no further work. Somewhere at the neighbors' house a tape recorder was playing. Alla Pugacheva could be heard persistently repeating: “I really want summer not to end!..”.
“But it’s true,” Lena thought dreamily, “it would be good if summer didn’t end!.. Sunbathe yourself, swim, and no essays for you!”
She read the headline again: How I Help Mom. “How can I help? And when to help here, if they ask so much for the house!
The light came on in the room: my mother entered.
“Sit, sit, I won’t bother you, I’ll just tidy up the room a little.” “She began wiping the bookshelves with a rag.
Lena began to write:
“I help my mother with the housework. I clean the apartment, wipe the dust off the furniture with a rag.”
-Why did you throw your clothes all over the room? - Mom asked. The question was, of course, rhetorical, because my mother did not expect an answer. She began putting things in the closet.
“I’m putting things in their places,” Lena wrote.
“By the way, your apron needs to be washed,” mom continued talking to herself.
“Washing clothes,” Lena wrote, then thought and added: “And ironing.”
“Mom, a button on my dress came off,” Lena reminded and wrote: “I sew buttons on if necessary.”
Mom sewed on a button, then went out to the kitchen and returned with a bucket and mop.
Pushing the chairs aside, she began to wipe the floor.
“Well, raise your legs,” said mom, deftly wielding a rag.
- Mom, you're bothering me! – Lena grumbled and, without lowering her feet, wrote: “Washing the floors.”
There was something burning coming from the kitchen.
- Oh, I have potatoes on the stove! – Mom shouted and rushed to the kitchen.
“I’m peeling potatoes and cooking dinner,” Lena wrote.
- Lena, have dinner! – Mom called from the kitchen.
- Now! – Lena leaned back in her chair and stretched.
A bell rang in the hallway.
- Lena, this is for you! - Mom shouted.
Olya, Lena’s classmate, entered the room, blushing from the frost.
- I do not for a long time. Mom sent for bread, and I decided to go to you on the way.
Lena took a pen and wrote: “I’m going to the store for bread and other products.”
- Are you writing an essay? – Olya asked. - Let me see.
Olya looked at the notebook and burst into tears:
- Wow! Yes, this is not true! You made it all up!
– Who said you can’t compose? – Lena was offended. - That’s why it’s called so-chi-ne-nie!

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Texts for learning by heart for the competition “Living Classics-2017”

Texts for the “Living Classics” competition

"But what if?" Olga Tikhomirova

It has been raining since morning. Alyoshka jumped over the puddles and walked quickly - quickly. No, he wasn't late for school at all. He just noticed Tanya Shibanova’s blue cap from afar.

You can't run: you'll be out of breath. And she might think that he was running after her all the way.

It’s okay, he’ll catch up with her anyway. He’ll catch up and say... But what to say? It's been more than a week since we quarreled. Or maybe we should go ahead and say: “Tanya, let’s go to the cinema today?” Or maybe give her a smooth black pebble that he brought from the sea?...

What if Tanya says: “Take away your cobblestone, Vertisheev. What do I need it for?!”

Alyosha slowed down, but, looking at the blue cap, he hurried up again.

Tanya walked calmly and listened to the cars rustling their wheels on the wet pavement. So she looked back and saw Alyoshka, who was just jumping over a puddle.

She walked more quietly, but did not look back again. It would be nice if he caught up with her near the front garden. They would walk together, and Tanya would ask: “Do you know, Alyosha, why some maples have red leaves and others have yellow?” Alyoshka will look and look and... Or maybe he won’t look at all, but will only mutter: “Read books, Shiba. Then you will know everything.” After all, they quarreled...

There was a school around the corner of the large house, and Tanya thought that Alyoshka would not have time to catch up with her.. We need to stop. But you can’t just stand in the middle of the sidewalk.

IN big house There was a clothing store, Tanya went to the window and began to look at the mannequins.

Alyoshka came up and stood next to him... Tanya looked at him and smiled slightly... “He’ll say something now,” thought Alyoshka and, in order to get ahead of Tanya, he said:

Ahh, it's you, Shiba.. Hello...

“Hello, Vertisheev,” she said.

Shipilov Andrey Mikhailovich “True Story”

Vaska Petukhov came up with this device: you press a button, and everyone around you starts telling the truth. Vaska made this device and brought it to school. Marya Ivanovna comes into the classroom and says: “Hello guys, I’m very glad to see you!” And Vaska presses the button - once! “But to be honest,” continues Marya Ivanovna, “then I’m not happy at all, why should I be happy?” I'm tired of you worse than bitter radish in two quarters! You teach you, teach you, put your soul into you - and no gratitude. Tired of it! I won't stand on ceremony with you anymore. Anything - a couple at once!

And during recess, Kosichkina comes up to Vaska and says: “Vaska, let’s be friends with you.” “Come on,” says Vaska, and he presses the button – once! “But I’m not just going to be friends with you,” Kosichkina continues, and with specific purpose. I know your uncle works at Luzhniki; So, when “Ivanushki-International” or Philip Kirkorov perform again, then you will take me with you to the concert for free.

Vaska felt sad. He walks around school all day, pressing a button. As long as the button is not pressed, everything is fine, but as soon as you press it, this starts happening!..

And after school it’s New Year’s Eve. Santa Claus comes into the hall and says: “Hello, guys, I’m Santa Claus!” Vaska presses the button - once! “Although,” continues Father Frost, “in fact, I’m not Father Frost at all, but the school watchman Sergei Sergeevich.” The school doesn’t have the money to hire a real artist to play Grandfather Moroz’s role, so the director asked me to advocate for time off. One performance – half a day off. Only, I think I made a mistake; I should have taken the whole day off, not just half. What do you guys think?

Vaska felt very bad at heart. He comes home sad and sad. - What happened, Vaska? - Mom asks, “You don’t have a face at all.” “Yes,” says Vaska, “nothing special, I was just disappointed in people.” “Oh, Vaska,” my mother laughed, “how funny you are; how I love you! - Is it true? - Vaska asks, - and he presses the button - One! - Is it true! - Mom laughs. - True true? - says Vaska, and he presses the button even harder. - True true! - Mom answers. “Well, then that’s it,” says Vaska, “I love you too.” Very very!

“Groom from 3B” Postnikov Valentin

Yesterday afternoon, during math class, I firmly decided that it was time for me to get married. And what? I’m already in third grade, but I still don’t have a fiancee. When, if not now? A couple more years and the train left. Dad often tells me: At your age, people already commanded a regiment. And it is true. But first I have to get married. I told my best friend Petka Amosov about this. He sits at the same desk with me.

– “You’re absolutely right,” Petka said decisively. - We will choose a bride for you at the big break. From our class.

During the break, the first thing he and I did was make a list of brides and began to think about which one I should marry.

– “Marry Svetka Fedulova,” says Petka.

– Why on Svetka? – I was surprised.

– Oddball! She’s an excellent student,” says Petka. “You’ll be cheating from her for the rest of your life.”

– No, I say. – Svetka is reluctant. She was cramming. He will force me to teach lessons. He will wander around the apartment like a clockwork and whine in a nasty voice: - Learn your lessons, learn your lessons.

– Let's cross it out! – Petka said decisively.

– Or maybe I should marry Soboleva? - I ask.

– On Nastya?

– Well, yes. She lives next to the school. It’s convenient for me to see her off,” I say. – It’s not like Katka Merkulova lives behind the railway. If I marry her, why should I trudge so far all my life? My mother doesn’t allow me to walk in that area at all.

– That’s right,” Petka shook his head. “But Nastya’s dad doesn’t even have a car.” But Mashka Kruglova has it. A real Mercedes, you'll drive it to the movies.

– But Masha is fat.

– Have you ever seen Mercedes? – asks Petka. - Three Mashas will fit in there.

– “That’s not the point,” I say. - I don’t like Masha.

– Then let's marry you to Olga Bublikova. Her grandmother cooks - you'll lick your fingers. Do you remember Bublikova treating us to grandma’s pies? Oh, and delicious. You won't be lost with such a grandmother. Even in old age.

– Happiness doesn’t lie in pies, I say.

– And what? – Petka is surprised.

– “I would like to marry Varka Koroleva,” I say. - Wow!

– And what about Varka? – Petka is surprised. - No A's, no Mercedes, no grandmother. What kind of wife is this?

– That's why her eyes are beautiful.

– Well, there you go,” Petka laughed. – The most important thing in a wife is the dowry. This is what the great Russian writer Gogol said, I heard it myself. And what kind of dowry is this - eyes? Laughter, and that's all.

– “You don’t understand anything,” I waved my hand. - Eyes are a dowry. The best!

That was the end of the matter. But I haven’t changed my mind about getting married. Just know!

Victor Golyavkin. Things are not going my way

One day I come home from school. That day I just got a bad grade. I walk around the room and sing. I sing and sing so that no one thinks that I got a bad mark. Otherwise they will ask: “Why are you gloomy, why are you thoughtful?”

Father says:

- Why is he singing like that?

And mom says:

- He is probably in a cheerful mood, so he sings.

Father says:

- He probably got an A, and that’s what’s fun for the man. It's always fun when you do something good.

When I heard this, I sang even louder.

Then the father says:

- Okay, Vovka, please your father and show him the diary.

Then I immediately stopped singing.

- For what? - I ask.

- “I see,” says the father, “you really want to show me the diary.”

He takes the diary from me, sees a deuce there and says:

- Surprisingly, I got a D and is singing! What, is he crazy? Come on, Vova, come here! Do you happen to have a fever?

- “I don’t have,” I say, “no fever...

The father spread his hands and said:

- Then you need to be punished for this singing...

That's how unlucky I am!

Parable “What you do will come back to you”

At the beginning of the twentieth century, a Scottish farmer was returning home and passed a marshy area. Suddenly he heard cries for help. The farmer rushed to help and saw a boy who was being sucked into its terrible abysses by the swamp slurry. The boy tried to climb out of the terrible mass of the swamp, but his every movement condemned him to quick death. The boy screamed. out of despair and fear.

The farmer quickly cut down a thick branch, carefully

approached and extended a saving branch to the drowning man. The boy got out safe place. He was trembling, he could not stop crying for a long time, but the main thing was that he was saved!

- “Let’s go to my house,” the farmer suggested to him. - You need to calm down, dry out and warm up.

- No, no,” the boy shook his head, “my dad is waiting for me.” He's probably very worried.

Looking gratefully into the eyes of his savior, the boy ran away...

In the morning, the farmer saw a rich carriage pulled by luxurious thoroughbred horses drive up to his house. A richly dressed gentleman came out of the carriage and asked:

- Was it you who saved my son's life yesterday?

- Yes, I am,” answered the farmer.

- How much do I owe you?

- Don't offend me, sir. You don't owe me anything because I did what a normal person should have done.

The class froze. Isabella Mikhailovna bent over the magazine and finally said:
- Rogov.
Everyone sighed with relief and slammed their textbooks shut. And Rogov went to the board, scratched himself and for some reason said:
- You look good today, Isabella Mikhailovna!
Isabella Mikhailovna took off her glasses:
- Well, well, Rogov. Get started.
Rogov sniffled and began:
- Your hair is neat! Not what I have.
Isabella Mikhailovna stood up and walked over to the world map:
- Haven't you learned your lesson?
- Yes! - Rogov exclaimed passionately. - I repent! Nothing can be hidden from you! The experience of working with children is enormous!
Isabella Mikhailovna smiled and said:
- Oh, Rogov, Rogov! Show me where Africa is.
“There,” said Rogov and waved his hand outside the window.
“Well, sit down,” sighed Isabella Mikhailovna. - Three...
During recess, Rogov gave interviews to his comrades:
- The main thing is to start this kikimore about eyes...
Isabella Mikhailovna was just passing by.
“Ah,” Rogov reassured his comrades. - This deaf grouse can’t hear more than two steps.
Isabella Mikhailovna stopped and looked at Rogov so that Rogov understood: the grouse could hear further than two steps.
The next day, Isabella Mikhailovna again called Rogov to the board.
Rogov turned white as a sheet and croaked:
- You called me yesterday!
“And I want more,” said Isabella Mikhailovna and squinted.
“Oh, your smile is so dazzling,” Rogov mumbled and fell silent.
- What else? - Isabella Mikhailovna asked dryly.
“Your voice is also pleasant,” Rogov squeezed out.
“Yes,” said Isabella Mikhailovna. - You haven't learned your lesson.
“You see everything, you know everything,” Rogov said listlessly. - But for some reason you went to school, people like me will ruin your health. You should go to the sea now, write poetry, meet a good person...
Bowing her head, Isabella Mikhailovna thoughtfully ran a pencil over the paper. Then she sighed and said quietly:
- Well, sit down, Rogov. Troika.

KOTINA KINDNESS Fedor Abramov

Nikolai K., nicknamed Kotya the Glass, was quite dashing during the war. The father is at the front, the mother died, and they don’t take him to the orphanage: there is a dear uncle. True, my uncle is disabled, but with a good job (a tailor), why should he warm up an orphan?

The uncle, however, did not warm the orphan, and the sonfront-line soldier often fed from the trash heap. Collects potato peelings and cooks them in a canAnke on a fire pit by the river, in which sometimes you can catch some minnow, and that’s what he lived for.

After the war, Kotya served in the army, built a house, started a family, and then took in his uncle -That by that time he was completely decrepit, in his ninth decade

has passed.

Uncle Kotya did not refuse anything. What he and his family ate, he put in his uncle’s cup. And he didn’t even share a glass unless he was taking communion himself.

- Eat, drink, uncle! “I don’t forget my relatives,” Kotya said every time.

- Don't forget, don't forget, Mikolayushko.

- Did you offend me regarding food and drink?

- Didn't offend, didn't offend.

- So you sheltered a helpless old man?

- Sheltered, sheltered.

- But how come you didn’t give me shelter during the war? The newspapers write that other people's children were taken into care because of the war. Folk. Do you remember how they sang in the song? " There's a war going on people's, holy war...” Am I really a stranger to you?

- Oh, oh, the truth is yours, Mikolayushko.

- Don't groan! Then I should have groaned when I was rummaging in the garbage pit...

Kotya usually ended the table conversation with a tear:

- Well, uncle, uncle, thank you! The deceased father would bow at your feet if he returned from the war. After all, he thought, the son of Yevon, a miserable orphan, under his uncle’s wing, and the crow warmed me with its wing more than my uncle. Do you understand this with your old head? After all, moose protect little moose calves from wolves, but you’re not an elk. You are my dear uncle... Eh!..

And then the old man began to cry out loud. For exactly two months, Kotya raised his uncle like this, day after day, and on the third month, his uncle hanged himself.

Excerpt from the novel Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn"

I closed the door behind me. Then I turned around and looked - there he was, dad! I was always afraid of him - he really beat me up. My father was about fifty years old, and did not look less than that. His hair is long, unkempt and dirty, hanging in clumps, and only his eyes shine through them, as if through bushes. There is not a trace of blood in the face - it is completely pale; but not as pale as other people’s, but such that it’s scary and disgusting to look at, like a fish’s belly or like a frog. And the clothes are complete trash, nothing to look at. I stood and looked at him, and he looked at me, swaying slightly in his chair. He looked me from head to toe, then said:
- Look how you dressed up - wow! You probably think that you are an important bird now, or what?
“Maybe I think so, maybe not,” I say.
- Look, don’t be too rude! - Got crazy while I was away! I’ll deal with you quickly, I’ll knock your arrogance off you! You’ve also become educated; they say you can read and write. Do you think your father is no match for you now, since he is illiterate? I'll beat all this out of you. Who told you to gain stupid nobility? Tell me, who told you to do this?
- The widow ordered.
- Widow? That's how it is! And who allowed the widow to poke her nose into something that wasn’t her own business?
- Nobody allowed it.
- Okay, I’ll show her how to meddle where they don’t ask! And you, look, quit your school. Do you hear? I'll show them! They taught the boy to turn up his nose in front of his own father, he assumed such importance! Well, if I ever see you hanging around this very school, stick with me! Your mother could neither read nor write, so she died illiterate. And all your relatives died illiterate. I can’t read or write, but he, look at what a dandy he’s dressed up as! I'm not the kind of person to put up with this, do you hear? Come on, read it, I’ll listen.
I took the book and started reading something about General Washington and the war. Not even half a minute had passed before he hit the book with his fist and it flew across the room.
- Right. You know how to read. But I didn’t believe you. Look at me, stop wondering, I won’t tolerate this! Follow
I'll be you, such a dandy, and if I just catch you near this very
school, I'll take all the skin off! I’ll pour it into you - before you know it! Good son, nothing to say!
He picked up a blue and yellow picture of a boy with cows and asked:
- What is this?
- They gave it to me because I am a good student. He tore the picture and said:
- I’ll give you something too: a good belt!
He muttered and grumbled something under his breath for a long time, then said:
- Just think, what a sissy! And he has a bed, and sheets, and a mirror, and a carpet on the floor - and his own father should be lying in a tannery along with the pigs! Good son, nothing to say! Well, I’ll deal with you quickly, I’ll beat all the crap out of you! Look, he assumed importance...

Previously, I didn’t really like studying, but now I decided that
I will definitely go to school, to spite my father.

SWEET JOB Sergey Stepanov

The boys sat at a table in the yard and languished from idleness. It's hot to play football, but it's a long way to go to the river. And we went like this twice today.
Dimka came up with a bag of sweets. He gave everyone a piece of candy and said:
- You’re playing the fool here, and I got a job.
- What job?
- A taster at a confectionery factory. I took the work home.
- Are you serious? - the boys got excited.
- Well, you see.
- What kind of work do you have there?
- I'm trying some sweets. How are they made? Pour a bag into a large vat granulated sugar, a bag of powdered milk, then a bucket of cocoa, a bucket of nuts... What if someone throws in an extra kilogram of nuts? Or vice versa...
“Quite the opposite,” someone interjected.
- In the end, you have to try what happened. You need a person with good taste. And they can no longer eat it themselves. Not only that, they can’t look at these candies anymore! That's why they have automatic lines everywhere. And the result is brought to us, the tasters. Well, we try and say: everything is fine, you can take it to the store. Or: it would be nice to add raisins here and make a new variety called “Zyu-zyu”.
- Wow, great! Dimka, you ask, do they need more tasters?
- I "ll ask.
- I would go to the chocolate candy section. I'm good at them.
- And I agree with caramel. Dimka, do they pay wages there?
- No, they only pay with sweets.
- Dimka, let’s come up with a new type of candy now, and you’ll offer it to them tomorrow!
Petrov came up, stood next to him for a while and said:
-Who are you listening to? Didn't he deceive you enough? Dimka, admit it: you’re making a fool of yourself!
- You’re always like this, Petrov. You’ll come and ruin everything. You won't let me dream.

Ivan Yakimov “Strange Procession”

In the fall, on Nastasia the Shepherd, when they were feeding the shepherds in the yards - thanking them for saving their livestock - Mitrokha Vanyugin’s ram went missing. I searched and searched for Mitrokh, but there was no sheep anywhere, even for the life of me. He began to walk around houses and yards. He visited five hosts, and then directed his steps to Macrida and Epiphanes. He comes in, and the whole family is slurping fatty lamb soup, only the spoons flicker.

“Bread and salt,” says Mitrokha, looking sideways at the table.

Come in, Mitrofan Kuzmich, you will be a guest. “Sit down and sip some soup with us,” the owners invite.

Thank you. No way, they slaughtered a sheep?

Thank God they stabbed him to death, he'll stop accumulating fat.

“I can’t imagine where the ram could have gone,” Mitrokha sighed and, after a pause, asked: “Didn’t he come to you by chance?”

Or maybe he did, we need to look in the barn.

Or maybe he went under the knife? – the guest narrowed his eyes.

“Maybe he got under the knife,” the owner answers, not at all embarrassed.

Don't joke, Epifan Averyanovich, you're not in the dark, tea, you were slaughtering a sheep, you have to distinguish yours from someone else's.

Yes, these sheep are all gray, like wolves, so who can tell them apart, said Makrida.

Show me the skin. I recognize my sheep in no time.

The owner carries the skin.

Well, that's right, my ram! - Mitrokha rushed from the bench. - There's a black spot on the back, and on the tail, look, the fur is singed: Blind Manyokha, she set it on fire with a torch while she was giving it water. - How does this work out?, rowing in the middle of the day?

We didn’t do it on purpose, sorry, Kuzmich. He was standing right at the door, damned, who knew he was yours,” the owners shrug their shoulders. “Don’t tell anyone, for God’s sake.” Take our ram and that's the end of the matter.

No, not the end! - Mitrokha jumped up and down. “Your ram is a runt, a lamb against mine.” Turn my ram!

How can you get it back if it's half eaten? – the owners are perplexed.

Turn over everything that is left, pay money for the rest.

An hour later, from the house of Makrida and Epiphanes to the house of Mitrokha, in front of the whole village, a strange procession was moving. Epiphanes with a lamb skin under his arm walked in front, crouching on his right leg, Mitrokha walked importantly behind him with a bag of lamb on his shoulder, and Makrida brought up the rear. . She trotted along with cast iron in her outstretched arms - carrying half-eaten soup from Mitrokhin's sheep. The ram, although disassembled, returned to its owner again.

Bobik visiting Barbos N. Nosov

Bobik saw a comb on the table and asked:

What kind of saw do you have?

What a saw! This is a scallop.

What is it for?

Oh you! - said Barbos. “It’s immediately obvious that he’s lived in a kennel all his life.” Don't know what a comb is for? Comb your hair.

What is it like to comb your hair?

Barbos took a comb and began to comb the hair on his head:

Look how you should comb your hair. Go to the mirror and comb your hair.

Bobik took the comb, went to the mirror and saw his reflection in it.

Listen,” he shouted, pointing to the mirror, “there’s some kind of dog there!”

Yes, it’s you yourself in the mirror! - Barbos laughed.

Like me? I’m here, and there’s another dog there. Barbos also went to the mirror. Bobik saw his reflection and shouted:

Well, now there are two of them!

Not really! - said Barbos. “It’s not two of them, but two of us.” They are there, in the mirror, lifeless.

Like inanimate? - Bobik shouted. - They're moving!

What a weirdo! - Barbos answered. “We are the ones moving.” You see, there’s one dog there that looks like me! - That's right, it looks like it! - Bobik was happy. Exactly like you!

And the other dog looks like you.

What you! - Bobik answered. “There’s some kind of nasty dog ​​there, and its paws are crooked.”

The same paws as yours.

No, you're deceiving me! You put some two dogs there and you think I’ll believe you,” Bobik said.

He began to comb his hair in front of the mirror, then suddenly laughed:

Look, that weirdo in the mirror is also combing his hair! This is hilarious!

Barbosonlysnorted and stepped aside.

Victor Dragunsky “Topsy-turvy”

One day I was sitting and sitting and out of the blue I suddenly thought of something that surprised even myself. I thought that it would be so good if everything around the world were arranged in reverse. Well, for example, for children to be in charge in all matters and adults would have to obey them in everything, in everything. In general, so that adults are like children, and children are like adults. That would be wonderful, it would be very interesting.

Firstly, I imagine how my mother would “like” such a story, that I walk around and command her as I want, and my dad would probably “like” it too, but there’s nothing to say about my grandmother. Needless to say, I would remember everything to them! For example, my mother would be sitting at dinner, and I would tell her:

“Why did you start a fashion for eating without bread? Here's more news! Look at yourself in the mirror, who do you look like? Looks like Koschey! Eat now, they tell you! - And she would start eating with her head down, and I would just give the command: - Faster! Don't hold it by the cheek! Are you thinking again? Are you still solving the world's problems? Chew it properly! And don’t rock your chair!”

And then dad would come in after work, and before he even had time to undress, I would already shout:

“Yeah, he showed up! We must always wait for you! Wash your hands now! As it should be, as it should be, there is no need to smear the dirt. It's scary to look at the towel after you. Brush three times and don’t skimp on the soap. Come on, show me your nails! It's horror, not nails. It's just claws! Where are the scissors? Don't move! I don’t cut any meat, and I cut it very carefully. Don't sniffle, you're not a girl... That's it. Now sit down at the table.”

He would sit down and quietly say to his mother:

“Well, how are you?”

And she would also say quietly:

“Nothing, thank you!”

And I would immediately:

“Talkers at the table! When I eat, I am deaf and dumb! Remember this for the rest of your life. Golden Rule! Dad! Put down the newspaper now, your punishment is mine!”

And they would sit like silk, and when my grandmother came, I would squint, clasp my hands and shout:

"Dad! Mother! Take a look at our grandma! What a view! The coat is open, the hat is on the back of the head! The cheeks are red, the whole neck is wet! Good, nothing to say. Admit it, I was playing hockey again! What kind of dirty stick is this? Why did you drag her into the house? What? It's a stick! Get her out of my sight now - out the back door!”

Here I would walk around the room and say to all three of them:

“After lunch, everyone sit down for your homework, and I’ll go to the cinema!”

Of course, they would immediately whine and whine:

“And you and I! And we want to go to the cinema too!”

And I would tell them:

“Nothing, nothing! Yesterday we went to a birthday party, on Sunday I took you to the circus! Look! I liked having fun every day. Stay at home! Here’s thirty kopecks for ice cream, that’s all!”

Then the grandmother would pray:

“Take me at least! After all, each child can take one adult with them for free!”

But I would dodge, I would say:

“And people over seventy years old are not allowed to enter this picture. Stay at home, fool!”

And I would walk past them, deliberately clicking my heels loudly, as if I didn’t notice that their eyes were all wet, and I would start getting dressed, and would twirl in front of the mirror for a long time, and would hum, and this would make them even worse they were tormented, and I would open the door to the stairs and say...

But I didn’t have time to think of what I would say, because at that time my mother came in, very real, alive, and said:

- You're still sitting. Eat now, look who you look like? Looks like Koschey!

Inside out questions

Once upon a time there was a boy who spent whole days pestering everyone with questions. There is, of course, nothing wrong with this; on the contrary, curiosity is a commendable thing. But the trouble is that no one was able to answer this boy’s questions.
For example, he comes one day and asks:
- Why do the boxes have a table?
Of course, people only opened their eyes in surprise or, just in case, answered:
- Boxes are used to put something in them. Well, let's say, dinnerware.
- I know what the boxes are for. But why do the boxes have tables?
People shook their heads and hurried to leave. Another time he asked:
- Why does the tail have a fish?
Or more:
- Why does the mustache have a cat?
People shrugged their shoulders and hurried to leave, because everyone had their own things to do.
The boy grew up, but still remained a little boy, and not just a little boy, but a little boy inside out. Even as an adult, he walked around and pestered everyone with questions. It goes without saying that no one, not a single person, could answer them. Completely in despair, the little guy retreated inside out to the top of the mountain, built himself a hut and there, in his freedom, came up with more and more new questions. He came up with them, wrote them down in a notebook, and then racked his brains, trying to find the answer. However, never in his life did he answer any of his questions.
And how could he answer if in his notebook it was written: “Why does the shadow have a pine tree?” "Why don't clouds write letters?" "Why don't postage stamps drink beer?" He began to have headaches from the tension, but he didn’t pay attention to it and kept coming up with his endless questions. Little by little he grew long beard, but he didn’t even think about cutting her hair. Instead, he came up with a new question: "Why does a beard have a face?"
In a word, he was an eccentric like few. When he died, a scientist began to research his life and made an amazing scientific discovery. It turned out that this little guy had been accustomed to putting his stockings on inside out since childhood and had been wearing them that way all his life. He had never been able to put them on properly. That is why he could not learn to ask the right questions until his death.
And look at your stockings, are you wearing them correctly?

THE SENSITIVE COLONEL O. Henry

The sun is shining brightly and the birds are singing cheerfully on the branches. Peace and harmony are spread throughout nature. A visitor sits at the entrance to a small suburban hotel, quietly smoking a pipe, waiting for the train.

But then a tall man in boots and a hat with wide, down-turned brims comes out of the hotel with a six-shooter revolver in his hand and shoots. The man on the bench rolls off with a loud scream. The bullet grazed his ear. He jumps to his feet in amazement and rage and yells:
- Why are you shooting at me?
A tall man approaches with a wide-brimmed hat in his hand, bows and says:
- I'm sorry, sir. I'm Colonel Jay, sir, it seemed to me that you were insulting me, sir, but I see that I was mistaken. Very “hell that didn’t kill you, sir.”
- I insult you - with what? - the visitor bursts out. - I didn't say a single word.
“You were knocking on the bench, sir,” as if you wanted to say that you were a woodpecker,
se", and I - p" belong to d"goy po"ode. I see now that you are just
knocked the ashes out of your "tubka, sir." I beg your pardon, sir, and also that you go and have a glass with me, sir, in order to show that you have no bitterness in your soul against the gentleman who "I apologize to you, sir."

“MONUMENT TO A SWEET CHILDHOOD” by O. Henry

He was old and weak, and the sand in the clock of his life had almost run out. He
walked with unsteady steps along one of the most fashionable streets in Houston.

He left the city twenty years ago, when it was little more than a meager village, and now, tired of wandering around the world and full of a painful desire to look once again at the places where he spent his childhood, he returned and found that a bustling business city had grown on the site of his ancestors' house.

He searched in vain for some familiar object that could remind him of days gone by. Everything has changed. There,
where his father’s hut stood, the walls of a slender skyscraper rose; the vacant lot where he played as a child was built up with modern buildings. On both sides there were magnificent lawns, running up to luxurious mansions.

Suddenly, with a cry of joy, he rushed forward with renewed energy. He saw in front of him - untouched by the hand of man and unchangeable by time - an old familiar object around which he had run and played as a child.

He extended his arms and rushed towards him with a deep sigh of contentment.
Later he was found sleeping with a quiet smile on his face on an old garbage heap in the middle of the street - the only monument to his sweet childhood!

Eduard Uspensky “Spring in Prostokvashino”

One day a parcel arrived for Uncle Fyodor in Prostokvashino, and in it was a letter:

“Dear Uncle Fedor! Your beloved Aunt Tamara, a former colonel of the Red Army, is writing to you. It's time for you to take up farming - both for education and for the harvest.

Carrots should be planted at attention. Cabbage - in a line through one.

Pumpkin - at the command “at ease”. Preferably near an old garbage dump. The pumpkin will “suck out” the entire trash heap and become huge. The sunflower grows well away from the fence so that the neighbors do not eat it. Tomatoes should be planted leaning against sticks. Cucumbers and garlic require constant fertilization.

I read all this in the charter of the agricultural service.

I bought seeds by the glass at the market and poured everything into one bag. But you'll figure it out on the spot.

Don't get carried away by gigantism. Remember the tragic fate of Comrade Michurin, who died after falling from a cucumber.

All. We kiss you with the whole family.”

Uncle Fyodor was horrified by such a package.

He selected for himself several seeds that he knew well. He planted sunflower seeds in a sunny place. I planted pumpkin seeds near the trash heap. That's all. Soon everything he grew up was delicious, fresh, just like in a textbook.

Marina Druzhinina. CALL, THEY WILL SING FOR YOU!

On Sunday we drank tea with jam and listened to the radio. As always at this time, radio listeners live congratulated their friends, relatives, bosses on their birthday, wedding day or something else significant; they told me how wonderful they were, and asked me to perform them for these wonderful people. good songs.

- Another call! - the announcer declared jubilantly once again. - Hello! We are listening to you! Who will we congratulate?

And then... I couldn’t believe my ears! The voice of my classmate Vladka rang out:

- This is Vladislav Nikolaevich Gusev speaking! Congratulations to Vladimir Petrovich Ruchkin, sixth grade student “B”! He got an A in math! First one this quarter! And actually the first one! Pass it on for him best song!

- Wonderful congratulations! - the announcer admired. - We join these warm words and wish dear Vladimir Petrovich that the mentioned five will not be the last in his life! And now - “Twice two is four”!

The music started playing, and I almost choked on my tea. It's no joke - they sing a song in my honor! After all, Ruchkin is me! And even Vladimir! And Petrovich too! And in general, I’m studying in the sixth “B”! Everything matches! Everything except five. I didn't get any A's. Never. But in my diary there was something exactly the opposite.

- Vovka! Did you really get an A?! “Mom jumped out from the table and rushed to hug and kiss me. - Finally! I dreamed about this so much! Why were you silent? How modest! And Vladik is a true friend! How happy he is for you! He even congratulated me on the radio! Five must be celebrated! I'll bake something delicious! - Mom immediately kneaded the dough and began to make pies, cheerfully singing: “Twice two is four, twice two is four.”

I wanted to shout that Vladik is not a friend, but a bastard! Everything is lying! There was no A! But the tongue did not turn at all. No matter how hard I tried. Mom was very happy. I never thought that my mother’s joy has such an effect on my tongue!

- Well done, son! - Dad waved the newspaper. - Show me the five!

- They collected our diaries,” I lied. - Maybe they’ll give it away tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow...

- OK! When they hand it out, then we’ll admire it! And let's go to the circus! Now I'm off to get some ice cream for all of us! - Dad rushed off like a whirlwind, and I rushed into the room, to the phone.

Vladik picked up the phone.

- Hello! - giggles. - Did you listen to the radio?

- Have you gone completely crazy? - I hissed. - Parents here have lost their heads because of your stupid jokes! And it’s up to me to unwind! Where can I get them a five?

- How is this where? - Vladik answered seriously. - Tomorrow at school. Come to me right now to do your homework.

Gritting my teeth, I went to Vladik. What else was left for me?..

In general, we spent two whole hours solving examples, problems... And all this instead of my favorite thriller “Cannibal Watermelons”! Nightmare! Well, Vladka, wait!

The next day, in mathematics class, Alevtina Vasilievna asked:

- Who wants to review homework at the board?

Vlad poked me in the side. I groaned and raised my hand.

First time in life.

- Ruchkin? - Alevtina Vasilievna was surprised. - Well, you are welcome!

And then... Then a miracle happened. I solved everything and explained it correctly. And in my diary a proud five turned red! Honestly, I had no idea that getting A's was so nice! Those who don't believe, let them try...

On Sunday, as always, we drank tea and listened

the program “Call, they will sing for you.” Suddenly the radio started chattering again in Vladka’s voice:

- Congratulations to Vladimir Petrovich Ruchkin from the sixth "B" with an A in Russian! Please give him the best song!

What-o-o-o?! Only the Russian language was still missing for me! I shuddered and looked at my mother with desperate hope - maybe I didn’t hear. But her eyes were shining.

- How clever you are! - Mom exclaimed, smiling happily.

Marina Druzhinina story “Horoscope”

The teacher sighed and opened the magazine.

Well, “take courage now”! Or rather, Ruchkin! Please list the birds that live on the edges of the forest, in open places.

That's the number! I never expected this! Why me? I shouldn't be called today! The horoscope promised “all Sagittarius, and therefore me, incredible luck, unbridled fun and a rapid rise up the career ladder.”

Maybe Maria Nikolaevna will change her mind, but she looked at me expectantly. I had to get up.

But what can I say - I had no idea, because I didn’t study the lessons - I believed the horoscope.

Oatmeal! – Redkin whispered into my back.

Oatmeal! – I repeated mechanically, not trusting Petka too much.

Right! – the teacher was delighted. - There is such a bird! Let's move on!

“Well done Redkin! Correctly suggested! Still, today is my lucky day! The horoscope did not disappoint!” - joyfully flashed through my head, and without any doubt, in one breath, I blurted out after Petka’s saving whisper:

Millet! Semolina! Buckwheat! Pearl barley!

An explosion of laughter drowned out the “barley.” And Maria Nikolaevna shook her head reproachfully:

Ruchkin, you probably really love porridge. But what do birds have to do with it? Sit down! "Two"!

I was literally seething with indignation. I showed

Redkin's fist and began to think about how to take revenge on him. But retribution immediately overtook the villain without my participation.

Redkin, to the board! - Maria Nikolaevna commanded. “It seems you also whispered something to Ruchkin about dumplings and okroshka.” Do you think these are also birds of open areas?

No! - Petka grinned. - I was joking.

Prompting incorrectly is mean! This is much worse than not learning a lesson! – the teacher was indignant. - I'll have to talk to your mom. Now name the birds - relatives of the crow.

There was silence. Redkin was clearly not in the know.

Vladik Gusev felt sorry for Petka, and he whispered:

Rook, jackdaw, magpie, jay...

But Redkin, apparently, decided that Vladik was taking revenge on him for his friend, that is, for me, and was giving him the wrong advice. Everyone judges for himself - I read about this in the newspaper... In general, Redkin waved his hand at Vladik: shut up, and announced:

The crow, like any other bird, has a large family. This is mom, dad, grandma - old crow - grandpa...

Here we literally howled with laughter and fell under our desks. Needless to say, the unbridled fun was a great success! Even a deuce didn't spoil the mood!

This is all?! – Maria Nikolaevna asked menacingly.

No, not everything! – Petka did not let up. “The crow also has aunts, uncles, sisters, brothers, nephews...

Enough! – the teacher shouted. “Two.” And so that all your relatives come to school tomorrow! Oh, what am I saying!... Parents!

(Martynov Alyosha)

1. Viktor Golyavkin. How I sat under my desk (Volikov Zakhar)

As soon as the teacher turned to the board, I immediately went under the desk. When the teacher notices that I have disappeared, he will probably be terribly surprised.

I wonder what he'll think? He’ll start asking everyone where I’ve gone - it’ll be a laugh! Half the lesson has already passed, and I’m still sitting. “When,” I think, “will he see that I’m not in the class?” And it’s hard to sit under the desk. My back even hurt. Try to sit like that! I coughed - no attention. I can't sit anymore. Moreover, Seryozha keeps poking me in the back with his foot. I couldn't stand it. Didn't make it to the end of the lesson. I get out and say: - Sorry, Pyotr Petrovich...

The teacher asks:

- What's the matter? Do you want to go to the board?

- No, excuse me, I was sitting under my desk...

- So, is it comfortable to sit there, under the desk? You sat very quietly today. This is how it would always be in class.

3.The story “Nakhodka” by M. Zoshchenko

One day Lelya and I took a box of chocolates and put a frog and a spider in it.

Then we wrapped this box in clean paper, tied it with a chic blue ribbon and placed this package on the panel facing our garden. It was as if someone was walking and lost their purchase.

Having placed this package near the cabinet, Lelya and I hid in the bushes of our garden and, choking with laughter, began to wait for what would happen.

And here comes a passerby.

When he sees our package, he, of course, stops, rejoices and even rubs his hands with pleasure. Of course: he found a box of chocolates - this doesn’t happen very often in this world.

With bated breath, Lelya and I watch what will happen next.

The passerby bent down, took the package, quickly untied it and, seeing the beautiful box, became even more happy.

And now the lid is open. And our frog, bored with sitting in the dark, jumps out of the box right onto the hand of a passerby.

He gasps in surprise and throws the box away from him.

Then Lelya and I began to laugh so much that we fell on the grass.

And we laughed so loudly that a passerby turned in our direction and, seeing us behind the fence, immediately understood everything.

In an instant he rushed to the fence, jumped over it in one fell swoop and rushed towards us to teach us a lesson.

Lelya and I set a streak.

We ran screaming across the garden towards the house.

But I tripped over a garden bed and sprawled out on the grass.

And then a passerby tore my ear quite hard.

I screamed loudly. But the passer-by, giving me two more slaps, calmly left the garden.

Our parents came running to the scream and noise.

Holding my reddened ear and sobbing, I went up to my parents and complained to them about what had happened.

My mother wanted to call the janitor so that she and the janitor could catch up with the passerby and arrest him.

And Lelya was about to rush after the janitor. But dad stopped her. And he said to her and mother:

- Don't call the janitor. And there is no need to arrest a passerby. Of course, it’s not the case that he tore Minka’s ears, but if I were a passer-by, I would probably have done the same.

Hearing these words, mom got angry with dad and said to him:

- You are a terrible egoist!

Lelya and I also got angry with dad and didn’t tell him anything. I just rubbed my ear and started crying. And Lelka also whimpered. And then my mother, taking me in her arms, said to my father:

- Instead of standing up for a passerby and making children cry, you would better explain to them what is wrong with what they did. Personally, I don’t see this and regard everything as innocent children’s fun.

And dad couldn’t find what to answer. He just said:

- The children will grow up big and someday they will find out for themselves why this is bad.

4.

BOTTLE

Just now on the street some young guy broke a bottle.

He was carrying something. I don't know. Kerosene or gasoline. Or maybe lemonade. In a word, some kind of soft drink. It's a hot time. I'm thirsty.

So, this guy was walking, gaped and knocked the bottle onto the sidewalk.

And such, you know, dullness. There is no need to kick the fragments off the sidewalk. No! He broke it, damn it, and moved on. And other passers-by, then, walk on these fragments. Very nice.

Then I deliberately sat down on the pipe at the gate to see what would happen next.

I see people walking on the glass. He curses, but walks. And such, you know, dullness. Not a single person is found to perform a public duty.

Well, what's it worth? Well, I would stop for a couple of seconds and shake off the fragments from the sidewalk with the same cap. But no, they walk by.

“No, I think, darlings! We still don’t understand social tasks. Slam on the glass."

And then I see that some guys have stopped.

- Eh, they say, it’s a pity that there are few barefoot people these days. Otherwise, they say, it would be great to run into yourself.

And suddenly a man comes.

A completely simple, proletarian-looking person.

This man stops around this broken bottle. Shakes his cute head. Groaning, he bends down and sweeps the fragments aside with a newspaper.

“I think it’s great! I was grieving in vain. The consciousness of the masses has not yet cooled down.”

And suddenly it comes up to this gray one, common man The policeman scolds him:

- What is this, he says, a chicken head? I ordered you to take away the fragments, and you are throwing them aside? Since you are the janitor of this house, you must rid your area of ​​your excess glass.

The janitor, muttering something under his breath, went into the yard and a minute later appeared again with a broom and a tin shovel. And he started cleaning up.

And for a long time, until they drove me away, I sat on the cabinet and thought about all sorts of nonsense.

And you know, perhaps the most surprising thing in this story is that the policeman ordered the glass to be removed.

I was walking down the street... I was stopped by a beggar, a decrepit old man.

Inflamed, tearful eyes, blue lips, rough rags, unclean wounds... Oh, how hideously poverty has gnawed at this unfortunate creature!

He extended his red, swollen, dirty hand to me... He moaned, he bellowed for help.

I started rummaging through all my pockets... Not a wallet, not a watch, not even a handkerchief... I didn't take anything with me.

And the beggar waited... and his outstretched hand weakly swayed and trembled.

Lost, embarrassed, I firmly shook this dirty, trembling hand...

- Don't blame me, brother; I have nothing, brother.

The beggar stared at me with his bloodshot eyes; his blue lips grinned - and he, in turn, squeezed my cold fingers.

- Well, brother,” he muttered, “thank you for that.” This is also alms, brother.

I realized that I also received alms from my brother.

12. The story “The Goat” by Tvark Man

We left early in the morning. Fofan and I were put in the back seat and we began to look out the window.

Dad drove carefully, didn’t overtake anyone and told Fofan and me about the rules traffic. It’s not about how and where to cross the road so as not to be run over. And about how to drive so as not to run over anyone.

“You see, the tram has stopped,” dad said. - And we have to stop to let passengers through. And now that they have passed, we can move on. But this sign says that the road will narrow and instead of three lanes there will only be two. Let's look to the right, to the left, and if there is no one, we'll change lanes.

Fofan and I listened, looked out the window, and I felt my legs and arms moving on their own. As if it was me, and not dad, who was driving.

Pa! - I said. - Will you teach Fofan and me to drive a car?

Dad was silent for a while.

Actually, this is an adult matter, he said. - Once you grow up a little, then you will definitely.

We began to approach the turn.

But this yellow square gives us the right to pass first. - said dad. - Main road. There is no traffic light. Therefore, we show the turn and...

He did not have time to leave completely. There was a roar of an engine on the left and a black “ten” rushed past our car. She swerved back and forth twice, squealed her brakes, blocked our path and stopped. A young guy in a blue uniform jumped out and quickly walked towards us.

Did you break something?! - Mom was scared. -Are you going to be fined now?

“Yellow square,” dad said in confusion. - Main road. I didn't break anything! Maybe he wants to ask something?

Dad lowered the window, and the guy almost ran to the door. He leaned over and I saw that his face was angry. Or no, not even evil. He looked at us as if we were the most important enemies in his life.

What are you doing, you goat!? - he yelled so loudly that Fofan and I flinched. - You drove me into oncoming traffic! Well, goat! Who taught you to drive like that? Who, I ask? They'll fucking put assholes behind the wheel! It’s a pity, I’m not at work today, I would write it for you! What are you staring at?

All four of us looked at him in silence, and he kept yelling and yelling, repeating “goat” every word. Then he spat on the wheel of our car and went to his “ten”. On his back, DPS was written in yellow letters.

The black "ten" squealed its wheels, took off like a rocket and sped off.

We sat in silence for a little longer.

Who is it? - Mom asked. - Why is he so nervous?

Fool Because completely - I answered. - DPS. And he was nervous because he was driving fast and almost crashed into us. He himself is to blame. We were driving correctly.

My brother was also yelled at last week,” Fofan said. - And DPS is a road patrol service.

It’s his own fault and he yelled at us? - Mom said. - Then this is not traffic police. This is HAM.

How is this translated? - I asked.

“No way,” my mother answered. - Boor, he is a boor.

Dad started the car and we drove on.

Got upset? - Mom asked. - No need. You were driving correctly, weren't you?

Yes, dad answered.

“Well, forget it,” said mom. - You never know there are boors in the world. Either in uniform or without uniform. Well, his parents saved money on raising him. So this is their problem. He probably yells at them too.

Yes, dad answered again.

Then he fell silent and didn’t say another word the whole way to the dacha.

13.V. Suslov “SLAPPING THE HEAD”

A sixth-grader stepped on an eighth-grader's foot.

Accidentally.

In the dining room, he went out of line to buy pies - and stepped on it.

And he got a slap on the head.

The sixth grader jumped back to a safe distance and said:

- Big one!

The sixth grader was upset. And I forgot about the pies. I left the dining room.

I met a fifth grader in the hallway. I gave him a slap on the head and it made him feel better. Because if they give you a slap on the head, but you can’t give it to anyone, then it’s very insulting.

- Strong, right? - the fifth grader frowned. And he stomped down the corridor in the other direction.

I passed by a ninth-grader. I walked past the seventh grader. I met a boy from the fourth grade.

And gave him a slap on the head. For the same reason.

Then, as you already guessed, according to the ancient proverb “if you have strength, you don’t need intelligence,” the third grader received a slap on the head. And he also didn’t keep it to himself - he gave it to a second grader.

Why does a second grader need a slap on the head? No need at all. He sniffed and ran to look for the first-grader. Who else? It’s not right to give elders slaps on the head!

I feel sorry for the first grader most of all. His situation is hopeless: he can’t run from school to kindergarten to fight!

The first-grader became thoughtful because of the slap on the head.

His dad met him at home.

Asks:

- Well, what did our first grader get today?

- “Well,” he replies, “he got a slap on the head.” And they didn’t put any marks.

(Krasavin)

Anton Pavlovich ChekhovSUMMER RESIDENTS
A couple of recently married spouses were walking back and forth along the dacha platform. He held her by the waist, and she clung to him, and both were happy. From behind the cloudy fragments the moon looked at them and frowned: she was probably jealous and annoyed at her boring, useless virginity. The still air was thickly saturated with the smell of lilac and bird cherry. Somewhere, on the other side of the rails, a crake was screaming...
- How good, Sasha, how good! - said the wife. - Really, you might think that all this is a dream. Look how cozy and affectionate this forest looks! How sweet are these solid, silent telegraph poles! They, Sasha, bring the landscape to life and say that there, somewhere, there are people... civilization... Don’t you like it when the wind faintly carries the noise of a running train to your ears?
- Yes... However, your hands are so hot! It's because you're worried, Varya... What did we have for dinner today?
- Okroshka and chicken... Chicken is enough for both of us. They brought you sardines and balyk from the city.
The moon, as if sniffing tobacco, hid behind a cloud. Human happiness reminded her of her loneliness, her lonely bed behind the forests and valleys...
“The train is coming!” said Varya. - How good!
Three fiery eyes appeared in the distance. The head of the station came out onto the platform. Signal lights flashed here and there on the rails.
“We’ll see off the train and go home,” said Sasha and yawned. “We’re living well with you, Varya, so good that it’s even incredible!”
The dark monster silently crawled up to the platform and stopped. Sleepy faces, hats, shoulders flashed in the dimly lit carriage windows...
- Ah! Oh! - was heard from one of the carriages. - Varya and her husband came out to meet us! Here they are! Varenka!.. Varenka! Oh!
Two girls jumped out of the carriage and hung on Varya’s neck. Behind them appeared a plump, elderly lady and a tall, skinny gentleman with gray sideburns, then two high school students laden with luggage, a governess behind the high school students, and a grandmother behind the governess.
“Here we are, here we are, my friend!” began the gentleman with sideburns, shaking Sasha’s hand. - Tea, I've been waiting for it! Probably scolded my uncle for not going! Kolya, Kostya, Nina, Fifa... children! Kiss cousin Sasha! All to you, the whole brood, and for three or four days. I hope we won't embarrass you? Please, no ceremony.
Seeing his uncle and his family, the couple were horrified. While his uncle was talking and kissing, a picture flashed through Sasha’s imagination: he and his wife were giving their three rooms, pillows, and blankets to the guests; the balyk, sardines and okroshka are eaten in one second, the cousins ​​pick flowers, spill ink, make noise, the aunt spends whole days talking about her illness (tapeworm and pain in the pit of the stomach) and the fact that she was born Baroness von Fintich...
And Sasha already looked at his young wife with hatred and whispered to her:
- They came to you... damn them!
- No, to you! - she answered, pale, also with hatred and malice. “These are not mine, but your relatives!”
And turning to the guests, she said with a friendly smile:
- Welcome!
The moon emerged from behind the cloud again. She seemed to be smiling; She seemed pleased that she had no relatives. And Sasha turned away to hide his angry, desperate face from the guests, and said, giving his voice a joyful, complacent expression: “You are welcome!” You are welcome, dear guests!

List of works to learn by heart and definition of the genre of the work the teacher carries out independently according to the author's program.

An excerpt of a work (poetic) for grades 5-11 must be a complete semantic text of at least 30 lines; prose text – 10-15 lines (grades 5-8), 15-20 lines (grades 9-11). Texts for memorizing from a dramatic work are determined by the form of the monologue.

1. A.S. Pushkin. " Bronze Horseman"(excerpt "I love you, Peter's creation...")

2. I.S. Turgenev. "Fathers and Sons" (excerpt)

3. I.S.Goncharov. "Oblomov" (excerpt)

4. A.N. Ostrovsky. “Thunderstorm” (excerpt: one of the monologues)

5. F.I.Tyutchev. "Oh, how murderously we love..."

6. N.A. Nekrasov. “The Poet and the Citizen” (excerpt “The son cannot look calmly...”); “You and I are stupid people...”, “Who can live well in Rus'?” (excerpt)

7. A.A.Fet. “Distant friend, understand my sobs...”

8. A.K. Tolstoy. “In the midst of a noisy ball, by chance...”

9. L.N. Tolstoy. "War and Peace" (excerpt)

10. A. Rimbaud. "Closet"

Alexander Pushkin.“I love you, Peter’s creation” (from the poem “The Bronze Horseman”)

I love you, Petra's creation,

I love your strict, slender appearance,

Neva sovereign current,

Its coastal granite,

Your fences have a cast iron pattern,

of your thoughtful nights

Transparent twilight, moonless shine,

When I'm in my room

I write, I read without a lamp,

And the sleeping communities are clear

Deserted streets and light

Admiralty needle,

And, not letting the darkness of the night

To golden skies

One dawn gives way to another

He hurries, giving the night half an hour.

I love your cruel winter

Still air and frost,

Sleigh running along the wide Neva,

Girls' faces are brighter than roses,

And the shine, and the noise, and the talk of balls,

And at the time of the feast the bachelor

The hiss of foamy glasses

And the punch flame is blue.

I love the warlike liveliness

Amusing Fields of Mars,

Infantry troops and horses

Uniform beauty

In their harmoniously unsteady system

The shreds of these victorious banners,

The shine of these copper caps,

Shot through and through in battle.

I love you, military capital,

Your stronghold is smoke and thunder,

When the queen is full

Gives a son to the royal house,

Or victory over the enemy

Russia triumphs again

Or, breaking your blue ice,

The Neva carries him to the seas

And, sensing the days of spring, he rejoices.

Show off, city Petrov, and stand

Unshakable like Russia,

May he make peace with you

And the defeated element;

Enmity and ancient captivity

Let the Finnish waves forget

And they will not be vain malice

Disturb Peter's eternal sleep!

I.S. Turgenev. "Fathers and Sons" (excerpt)

And now I repeat to you at parting... because there is no point in deceiving yourself: we are saying goodbye forever, and you yourself feel it... you acted smartly; you were not created for our bitter, tart, bean* life. You have neither insolence nor anger, but only youthful courage and youthful enthusiasm; This is not suitable for our business. Your brother, a nobleman, cannot go further than noble humility or noble ebullience, and this is nothing. For example, you don’t fight - and you already imagine yourself to be great - but we want to fight. What! Our dust will eat into your eyes, our dirt will stain you, and you haven’t grown up to us, you involuntarily admire yourself, you enjoy scolding yourself; But it’s boring for us - give us others! We need to break others! You are a nice fellow; but you are still a soft, liberal barich - e volatu, as my parent puts it.

Are you saying goodbye to me forever, Evgeniy? - Arkady said sadly, - and you have no other words for me?

Bazarov scratched the back of his head.

Yes, Arkady, I have other words, but I won’t express them, because this is romanticism - it means: get drunk *. And you should get married as soon as possible; Yes, get your own nest, and have more children. They will be smart just because they will be born on time, not like you and me.

NOTES:

* BOBYL- unmarried, bachelor, celibate, single, wifeless, familyless.

*GET EXCITED and fall apart, fall apart, fall apart - become soft, fall into a sentimental mood.

I.S. Goncharov."Oblomov" (excerpt)

No,” Olga interrupted, raising her head and trying to look at him through her tears. “I only recently found out that I loved in you what I wanted to have in you, what Stolz showed me, what we came up with with him.” I loved the future Oblomov! You are meek and honest, Ilya; you are gentle... dove; you hide your head under your wing - and don’t want anything more; you are ready to coo under the roof all your life... but I’m not like that: this is not enough for me, I need something else, but I don’t know what! Can you teach me, tell me what it is, what I lack, give it all so that I... And tenderness... where it is not!

Oblomov’s legs gave way; he sat down in a chair and wiped his hands and forehead with a handkerchief.

The word was cruel; it deeply stung Oblomov: inside it seemed to burn him, outside it blew cold on him. In response, he smiled somehow pitifully, painfully bashful, like a beggar who was reproached for his nakedness. He sat with this smile of powerlessness, weakened from excitement and resentment; his dull gaze clearly said: “Yes, I am meager, pitiful, poor... beat me, beat me!..”

Who cursed you, Ilya? What did you do? You are kind, smart, gentle, noble... and... you are dying! What ruined you? There is no name for this evil...

“Yes,” he said, barely audible.

She looked at him questioningly, her eyes full of tears.

Oblomovism! - he whispered, then took her hand, wanted to kiss it, but couldn’t, he just pressed it tightly to his lips, and hot tears dripped onto her fingers.

Without raising his head, without showing her his face, he turned around and walked away.

A.N. Ostrovsky.“Thunderstorm” (excerpt: one of the monologues)

Monologue of Katerina.

I say, why don’t people fly like birds? You know, sometimes I feel like I'm a bird. When you stand on a mountain, you feel the urge to fly. That's how I would run up, raise my hands and fly...

How playful I was! I'm completely withered...

Was that what I was like? I lived, didn’t worry about anything, like a bird in the wild. Mama doted on me, dressed me up like a doll, and didn’t force me to work; I used to do whatever I want. Do you know how I lived with girls? I'll tell you now. I used to get up early; If it’s summer, I’ll go to the spring, wash myself, bring some water with me and that’s it, I’ll water all the flowers in the house. I had many, many flowers. Then we’ll go to church with Mama, all of us, strangers; our house was full of strangers; yes praying mantis. And we’ll come from church, sit down to do some kind of work, more like gold velvet, and the wanderers will begin to tell us: where they were, what they saw, different lives, or sing poetry. So time will pass until lunch. Here the old women go to sleep, and I walk around the garden. Then to Vespers, and in the evening again stories and singing. It was so good!

Monologue of Kuligin.

Cruel morals, sir, in our city, they are cruel! In philistinism, sir, you will see nothing but rudeness and stark poverty. And we, sir, will never escape this crust! Because honest work will never earn us more daily bread. And whoever has money, sir, tries to enslave the poor so that he can make even more money from his free labors. Do you know what your uncle, Savel Prokofich, answered to the mayor? The peasants came to the mayor to complain that he would not disrespect any of them. The mayor began to tell him: “Listen,” he says, Savel Prokofich, pay the men well! Every day they come to me with complaints!” Your uncle patted the mayor on the shoulder and said: “Is it worth it, your honor, for us to talk about such trifles! I have a lot of people every year; You understand: I won’t pay them a penny per person, but I make thousands out of this, so that’s good for me!” That's it, sir!

F.I. Tyutchev."Oh, how murderously we love..."

Oh, how murderously we love,

We are most likely to destroy,

What is dear to our hearts!

How long ago, proud of my victory,

You said: she is mine...

A year has not passed - ask and find out,

What was left of her?

Where did the roses go?

The smile of the lips and the sparkle of the eyes?

Everything was scorched, tears burned out

With its hot moisture.

Do you remember, when you met,

At the first fatal meeting,

Her eyes and speeches are magical

And baby-like laughter?

So what now? And where is all this?

And how long was the dream?

Alas, like northern summer,

He was a passing guest!

Fate's terrible sentence

Your love was for her

And undeserved shame

She laid down her life!

A life of renunciation, a life of suffering!

In her spiritual depths

She was left with memories...

But they changed them too.

And on earth she felt wild,

The charm is gone...

The crowd surged and trampled into the mud

What bloomed in her soul.

And what about the long torment?

How did she manage to save the ashes?

Evil pain, bitter pain,

Pain without joy and without tears!

Oh, how murderously we love!

As in the violent blindness of passions

We are most likely to destroy,

What is dearer to our hearts!..

N.A. Nekrasov.“The Poet and the Citizen” (excerpt “The son cannot look calmly...”)

The son cannot look calmly

On my dear mother's grief,

There will be no worthy citizen

I have a cold heart for my homeland,

There is no worse reproach for him...

Go into the fire for the honor of your fatherland,

For conviction, for love...

Go and die blamelessly.

You will not die in vain, the matter is strong,

When the blood flows underneath...

And you, poet! chosen one of heaven,

Herald of age-old truths,

Do not believe that he who has no bread

Not worth your prophetic strings!

Don’t believe that people will fall altogether;

God has not died in the souls of people,

And a cry from a believing chest

Will always be available to her!

Be a citizen! serving art,

Live for the good of your neighbor,

Subordinating your genius to feeling

All-embracing Love;

And if you are rich in gifts,

Don’t bother exhibiting them:

They themselves will shine in your work

Their life-giving rays.

Look: solid stone in fragments

The poor worker crushes

And from under the hammer it flies

And the flame splashes out on its own!

N.A. Nekrasov.“You and I are stupid people...”

You and I are stupid people:

In just a minute, the flash is ready!

Relief for a troubled chest

An unreasonable, harsh word.

Speak up when you're angry

Everything that excites and torments the soul!

Let us, my friend, be openly angry:

The world is easier and more likely to get boring.

If prose in love is inevitable,

So let's take a share of happiness from her:

After a quarrel, so full, so tender

Return of love and participation.

N.A. Nekrasov.“Who can live well in Rus'?” (excerpt)

You're miserable too

You are also abundant

You are mighty

You are also powerless

Mother Rus'!

Saved in slavery

Free heart -

Gold, gold

People's heart!

People's power

Mighty force -

Conscience is calm,

The truth is alive!

Strength with untruth

Doesn't get along

Sacrifice by untruth

Not called

Rus' does not move,

Rus' is like dead!

And she caught fire

Hidden spark

They stood up - unwounded,

They came out - uninvited,

Live by the grain

The mountains have been destroyed!

The army is rising

Countless!

The strength in her will affect

Indestructible!

You're miserable too

You are also abundant

You're downtrodden

You are omnipotent

Mother Rus'!

A.A.Fet.“Distant friend, understand my sobs...” (“A. L. Brzeskoy”)

Distant friend, understand my sobs,

Forgive me for my painful cry.

They bloom with you soul memories,

And I haven’t lost the habit of cherishing you.

Who will tell us that we did not know how to live,

Soulless and idle minds,

That kindness and tenderness did not burn in us

And we didn’t sacrifice beauty?

Where is all this? The soul is still burning

Still ready to embrace the world.

Vain heat! Nobody is answering,

Sounds will resurrect and die again.

Only you are alone! High excitement

There is blood on the cheeks and inspiration in the heart. -

Get away from this dream - there are too many tears in it!

It’s not a pity for life with languid breathing,

What is life and death? What a pity about that fire

That shone over the whole universe,

And he goes into the night and cries as he leaves.

A.K. Tolstoy.“In the midst of a noisy ball, by chance...”

In the middle of a noisy ball, by chance,

In the anxiety of worldly vanity,

I saw you, but it's a mystery

Your features are covered.

Like the sound of a distant pipe,

Like a playing shaft of the sea.

I liked your thin figure

And your whole thoughtful look,

And your laughter, both sad and ringing,

Since then it has been ringing in my heart.

In the lonely hours of the night

I love, tired, to lie down -

I see sad eyes

I hear cheerful speech;

And sadly I fall asleep like that,

And I sleep in unknown dreams...

Do I love you - I don't know

But it seems to me that I love it!

L.N. Tolstoy. "War and Peace" (excerpt)

In captivity, in a booth, Pierre learned not with his mind, but with his whole being, life, that man was created for happiness, that happiness is in himself, in the satisfaction of natural human needs, and that all unhappiness comes not from lack, but from excess; but now, in these last three weeks of the campaign, he learned another new, comforting truth - he learned that there is nothing terrible in the world. He learned that since there is no situation in which a person would be happy and completely free, there is also no situation in which he would be unhappy and not free. He learned that there is a limit to suffering and a limit to freedom, and that this limit is very close; that the man who suffered because one leaf was wrapped in his pink bed suffered in the same way as he suffered now, falling asleep on the bare, damp earth, cooling one side and warming the other; that when he used to put on his narrow ballroom shoes, he suffered in exactly the same way as now, when he walked completely barefoot (his shoes had long since become disheveled), with feet covered with sores. He learned that when he, as it seemed to him, of his own free will, married his wife, he was no more free than now, when he was locked in the stable at night. Of all the things that he later called suffering, but which he hardly felt then, the main thing was his bare, worn, scabby feet.

A. Rimbaud."Closet"

Here is an old carved cabinet, whose oak has dark streaks

I began to look like kind old men a long time ago;

The closet is thrown open, and darkness comes from all the secluded corners

The enticing smell flows like old wine.

Full of everything: a pile of junk,

Pleasant-smelling yellow underwear,

Grandmother's scarf, where there is an image

Griffin, lace, and ribbons, and rags;

Here you will find medallions and portraits,

A strand of white hair and a strand of a different color,

Children's clothes, dried flowers...

O closet of bygone days! Lots of stories

And you keep many fairy tales safely

Behind this door, blackened and creaky.

A short story about the war

Evgeniy Rybakov

“I believed in God during the war,” my grandfather told me, “and because of one person.” Name was Anatoly. He served in our tank crew since December 1941. Mechanic. The guy was from the Pskov region from the town of Porkhov. He was all calm, seemingly unhurried. And always a cross around my neck. Before every battle, he always made the sign of the cross.

Our commander, Yura, a fierce Komsomol member, could not directly see either the cross of this copper or the sign of the cross.

; What are you, one of the priests?! - and so he flew at Anatoly. - And where do you guys come from? How did you just get called to the front? You are not our man!

Tolya answered with his usual dignity, taking his time with the arrangement: “I am ours, Pskopskaya, Russian, therefore. And not from priests, but from peasants. My grandmother is a believer, God bless her, she raised me in the faith. And at the front I am a volunteer, you know. The Orthodox have always fought for the Fatherland.”

Yurka was seething with anger, but there was nothing to find fault with Tolya other than the cross - the tanker was as expected. When in 1942 we almost found ourselves surrounded, I remember Yuri telling us all:

; This means that if we find ourselves among the Germans, everyone is ordered to shoot themselves. You can't give up!

We were silent, depressed and tense, only Tolya answered, as always, slowly: “I can’t shoot myself, the Lord does not forgive this sin, suicide, therefore.”

;What if you end up with a German and become a traitor? – Yuri said angrily.

“I won’t finish,” Tolya answered. Thank God, we then escaped encirclement and captivity...

At the beginning of 1944, in Belarus, several crews received orders to go to the junction station, where our infantry had been fighting for several hours. A German train with ammunition was stuck there - it was reaching out to help a large formation that was trying to recapture a key position from us... The battle was short. Our two cars immediately burst into flames. Our tank went around them and, at full speed, was heading towards the station, which was already visible behind the trees, when something hit the armor, and suddenly a fire broke out inside the cabin. ...The tank stood up. Tolya and I dragged the youngest of us, Volodya, out of the hatch, lowered him to the ground and ran with him about forty meters. Let's see - he's dead. It happens that it’s immediately obvious... And then Tolya shouts: “Where is the commander?”

And it’s true, Yuri is missing... And the whole tank is already on fire, blazing. Tolya crossed himself and said to me: “Cover!” - and back. ...When I ran up to the tank, it was already dragging Yurka down. The commander was alive, he was just severely shell-shocked and burned. He saw almost nothing. But it was he who suddenly heard the grinding noise and shouted: “Brothers, the train! It’s breaking through!” ... And suddenly we heard our tank roar and rumble... The entire tank was burning, burning like a huge torch. ... The Germans, seeing a fiery tornado rushing towards them, started firing indiscriminately, but were no longer able to stop the T-34. Blazing with flames, the tank crashed into the front cars of the German train at full speed. I remember how the air burst with a hellish roar: boxes with shells began to explode one after another. ... In the medical battalion, Yurka cried like a boy and repeated hoarsely coughing: “Misha, listen, what about God? He, Tolka, shouldn’t have killed himself. Since he is a believer! What will happen now!”

Two years later I came to the Pskov region, to small Porkhov. ... I found a small church. There, Tolya’s grandmother and Tolya himself were remembered. The old priest there blessed him before leaving for the front. I honestly told this priest the whole story of Tolin and how he died. Father thought, crossed himself, and shook his head. And in full rite he performed the funeral service for the servant of God Anatoly, who was killed for the Fatherland and the Orthodox faith. He laid down his soul for the Fatherland.”

Marina Druzhinina

My friend is superman

N A surprise awaited us in the Russian language lesson.
- There will be no dictation today! - Tatyana Evgenievna announced. - But now you will write an essay under the code name “My Friend.” I hope you will approach this task responsibly and creatively. So, I expect short and vivid portraits of your friends, classmates or just acquaintances from you!
“I’ll write about Petka!” I decided. “Maybe he’s not really my friend, but that he’s an acquaintance is a fact. And he’s sitting right in front of me - it’s very convenient to describe him!”
At that moment Petka seemed to sense that I was watching him and moved his ears. That’s why I started the essay like this: “My friend moves his ears really well...”
It turned out to be very interesting to describe Petka. I didn’t even notice how Tatyana Evgenievna approached.
- Vova, wake up! Everyone has already finished their work!
- I'm done too!
- Who did you write about with such enthusiasm?
“So, about one person from our class,” I answered mysteriously.
- Wonderful! - the teacher exclaimed. - Read aloud, and we will guess who this person is.
“My friend moves his ears great,” I began. “Although they are huge, like mugs, and at first glance very clumsy...”
- Yes, this is Pashka Romashkin! - Lyudka Pustyakova shouted. - He has just such ears!
- That's wrong! - I snapped and continued: “My friend does not like to study. But he really loves to eat. In general, he is a gluttonous friend. Despite this, he is skinny and pale. My friend’s shoulders are narrow, his eyes are small and cunning. He is very homely with looks like a stooped little match in a school uniform. Or a pale toadstool..."
- Then this is Vladik Gusev! Look how skinny he is! - Pustyakova shouted again.
- But the ears don’t match! - others shouted.
- Stop making noise! - the teacher intervened. - Vova will finish, then we’ll sort it out.
“Sometimes my friend can be terribly mischievous,” I read further. “And sometimes not terribly. He loves to laugh at others. And his teeth stick out in different directions. Like a vampire...”
- Guys! Yes, it’s Vovka himself! - Petka suddenly screamed. - Everything matches! And shoulders! And harmful! And the teeth stick out!
- Right! - other guys picked up. - That's it Vovka! Nice description of yourself!
Some girls even clapped their hands.
“Since everyone guessed in unison, it means it’s really similar,” said the teacher. - But you are very critical of yourself. I drew some kind of caricature!
- It’s not me! You don't understand anything! - I was literally sweating with indignation. - This is Petka! Isn't it clear?!
Everyone laughed, and Petka stuck his tongue out at me and jumped up and down on his chair.
- Petya, calm down. Now we will listen to what you wrote,” said Tatyana Evgenievna. - And you, Vova, have something to think about.
I sat down, and Petka stood up. And he declared:
- “My friend has an incredibly beautiful face! He is amazingly built, smart and strong. And this is immediately noticeable. He has long strong fingers, steel muscles, a thick neck and broad shoulders. You could easily break a brick on my friend’s head. And a friend with an eye won't blink. He'll just laugh. My friend knows everything in the world. I love to talk to him about this and that. Every now and then my friend comes to my aid. Both day and night!.."
- This is a friend! - Tatyana Evgenievna admired. - You'll be jealous! I wouldn’t refuse such a superfriend myself! Come on guys, quickly: who is it?
But we didn’t understand anything and looked at each other in bewilderment.
- I know! It's Sylvester Stallone! - Pustyakova suddenly blurted out.
But no one reacted to such stupidity: Stallone and Petka will still chat about this and that!
But Tatyana Evgenievna still clarified:
- Is your friend from this class?
- From this! - Petka confirmed. And we again began to widen our eyes and turn in all directions.
- Okay, Petya, we give up! - the teacher finally said. -Who is the hero of your story?
Petka lowered his eyes and said shyly:
- It's me.

Irina Pivovarova. What is my head thinking?

If you think that I study well, then you are mistaken. I study no matter. For some reason, everyone thinks that I am capable, but lazy. I don't know if I'm capable or not. But only I know for sure that I am not lazy. I spend three hours working on problems. For example, now I’m sitting and trying with all my might to solve a problem. But she doesn’t dare. I tell my mom:

Mom, I can’t do the problem.

Don’t be lazy, says mom. - Think carefully, and everything will work out. Just think carefully!

She leaves on business. And I take my head with both hands and tell her:

Think, head. Think carefully... “Two pedestrians went from point A to point B...” Head, why don’t you think? Well, head, well, think, please! Well what is it worth to you!

A cloud floats outside the window. It is as light as feathers. There it stopped. No, it floats on.

“Head, what are you thinking about?! Aren `t you ashamed!!! Two pedestrians went from point A to point B...” Lyuska probably left too. She's already walking. If she had approached me first, I would, of course, forgive her. But will she really fit, such a mischief?!

“...From point A to point B...” No, she won’t do. On the contrary, when I go out into the yard, she will take Lena’s arm and whisper to her. Then she will say: “Len, come to me, I have something.” They will leave, and then sit on the windowsill and laugh and nibble on seeds.

“...Two pedestrians left point A to point B...” And what will I do?.. And then I’ll call Kolya, Petka and Pavlik to play lapta. What will she do?.. Yeah, she’ll put on the record “Three Fat Men.” Yes, so loud that Kolya, Petka and Pavlik will hear and run to ask her to let them listen. They've listened to it a hundred times, but it's not enough for them! And then Lyuska will close the window, and they will all listen to the record there.

“...From point A to point... to point...” And then I’ll take it and fire something right at her window. Glass - ding! - and will fly apart. Let him know!

So. I'm already tired of thinking. Think, don’t think, the task will not work. Just an awfully difficult task! I'll take a walk a little and start thinking again.

I closed the book and looked out the window. Lyuska was walking alone in the yard. She jumped into hopscotch. I went out into the yard and sat down on a bench. Lyuska didn’t even look at me.

Earring! Vitka! - Lyuska immediately shouted. “Let’s go play lapta!”

The Karmanov brothers looked out the window.

“We have a throat,” both brothers said hoarsely. - They won't let us in.

Lena! - Lyuska screamed. - Linen! Come out!

Instead of Lena, her grandmother looked out and threatened

Lyuska with a finger.

Pavlik! - Lyuska screamed.

No one appeared at the window.

Whoops! - Lyuska pressed herself.

Girl, why are you yelling?! - Someone's head poked out of the window. - A sick person is not allowed to rest! There is no peace for you! - And his head stuck back into the window.

Lyuska looked at me furtively and blushed like a lobster. She tugged at her pigtail. Then she took the thread off her sleeve. Then she looked at the tree and said:

Lucy, let's play hopscotch.

Come on, I said.

We jumped into hopscotch and I went home to solve my problem. As soon as I sat down at the table, my mother came.

Well, how's the problem?

Does not work.

But you’ve been sitting over it for two hours already! This is just terrible! They give the children some puzzles!.. Well, come on, show us your problem! Maybe I can do it? After all, I graduated from college... So... “Two pedestrians went from point A to point B...” Wait, wait, this task is somehow familiar to me!.. Listen, you did it last time I decided with my dad! I remember perfectly!

How? - I was surprised. - Really?.. Oh, really, this is the forty-fifth task, and we were given the forty-sixth.

At this point my mother became terribly angry.

It's outrageous! - said mom. “This is unheard of!” This mess! Where is your head?! What is she thinking about?!

Yandex.Direct

Monologue Monologue of a Blind Girl

Tanechka Sedykh

There are two chairs on the stage. Slow classical music is playing. A girl enters the hall, wearing a raincoat, a scarf tied around her neck, and light shoes. Her gaze is turned to nowhere, it is clear that she is blind. She stands, shifts from foot to foot, sits down on one of the chairs, then gets up again, looking at her watch. He sits down again and enjoys the music. She feels that someone is approaching her. Rises.

“Is that you? Hello! I recognized you. You always breathe so softly and heavily and your gait is so smooth, flying. How long have I been waiting? No, not at all, I came about 15 minutes ago. You know how much I love the sound of the fountain and the laughter of children playing on the playground. And the rustling of leaves reminds me of the wonderful, summer and carefree days of my childhood. Naive? No, I just love to dream and know how to enjoy little things! Such as the aroma of grass and the coolness of the fog, the touch of a warm palm and the melody of the early morning , music of awakening. And everything else doesn’t matter to me. I learned to feel those things that cannot be seen, that can only be understood with the heart. How I would like you to feel them like I do... Lord, what am I saying! Mine desire is selfish! You have a divine gift...What is divine about it??? Question from a sighted person! It is common for all people not to appreciate what they have, and only to suffer when they lose it. But only the blind can tell you that there is reality beyond the visible In that same smell, melody and hug. Forgive me... Do you forgive me?..."

The girl sits down on one of the chairs and looks dreamily into space.

"Shall we take a walk? Or sit and listen to a street musician play the flute? Tell me what he looks like! What do I think? I think he looks like John Lennon, he's wearing a shabby brown jacket with leather elbow patches, a plaid shirt and trousers with suspenders... Yes, you're right, this is how a saxophonist should be dressed. And next to him lies a black case from his flute, into which children poured millet and pigeons peck it right from the case. Fantasy ran wild... But I can describe what it's like similar to the melody of a musician. The sounds of a flute are like the singing of birds on a spring morning, they are like drops of rain and the iridescence of a rainbow. They make my soul rush high, high to the heavens! I just feel an irresistible desire growing in me to rise on my tiptoes, throw my hands up and sing, sing, of course, sing, only this melody has no words, just as I have no light in my eyes... I’m not crying. It’s just that sometimes I feel a lack of something. I don’t understand what. Yes, I’ve learned to perceive and feel people differently their voice, their breathing, their gait. I can easily determine the skin color, hair length, height and eye color of the speaker or singer. But I touch my face and I don't know what it is like. It’s as if I’m lost to myself...Like a closed book. I can smell, touch and hear everything in this world. But I will remain a mystery to myself forever."

The girl grabs her hand as if someone touched her there. She places her second hand on the first and strokes the imaginary hand of her interlocutor.

"You took my hand. I recognize your touch from a thousand others. Your hand is like a guiding thread, leading me through the labyrinth of darkness, which only rarely acquires gray shade. When? In the moments when I cry. Believe me, tears seem to wash away this veil from my eyes. I listen to music...And when the rhythm, key and words sound and combine, when they are at the peak of mutual harmony, it is like a climax, an orgasm and tears flow from my eyes. But these are not bitter tears, not tears of suffering or bitterness. These are grateful tears, healing and soothing. But why am I talking about tears... You smile! I feel it, I hear how your hair moves, how your eyes narrow in a smile."

The girl gets up, walks around the chair, leans on its back, as if putting her hands on the interlocutor’s shoulders.

“You and I are sitting like this, very friendly and cozy, holding hands, smiling. This is an unforgettable feeling. And the sincerity and kindness of your palm cannot be replaced by any colorful pictures and multi-colored markers!!!”

The girl sits down on the chair again and doesn’t get up again. She no longer looks at her interlocutor, she looks into the hall, as if trying to look at everyone in the hall, but she fails. The music is playing a little louder.

"People pass by, they smile because the sun is shining brightly. I feel it on my face and body. Its warmth envelops my whole body, like a duvet. People are happy blue sky, sun and warmth! Children run barefoot on the warm asphalt. And adults wear light moccasins and cotton scarves that flutter in the breeze. And you know, I really love it when big flakes of snow fall from the sky in winter. I feel them melt on my eyelids and lips, and then I believe that I belong to this world. Along with the sun, sky, birds and songs. Each person, each bauble and pear adapts in their own way to the huge world around us. I am a part of him, blind, but believing that thanks to the power of love for everything living, for everything that sings, smells and warms, I subtly feel the whole palette and rainbow of its weaves... Do you understand me? No, you're sighted. Do you love me? I love you too. And that's enough for us."

Marina Druzhinina. Call, they will sing for you!

On Sunday we drank tea with jam and listened to the radio. As always at this time, radio listeners live congratulated their friends, relatives, bosses on their birthday, wedding day or something else significant; They told us how wonderful they were and asked them to sing good songs for these wonderful people.

Another call! - the announcer declared jubilantly once again. - Hello! We are listening to you! Who will we congratulate?

And then... I couldn’t believe my ears! The voice of my classmate Vladka rang out:

This is Vladislav Nikolaevich Gusev speaking! Congratulations to Vladimir Petrovich Ruchkin, fourth grade student “B”! He got an A in math! First one this quarter! And actually the first one! Give him the best song!

Wonderful congratulations! - the announcer admired. - We join these warm words and wish dear Vladimir Petrovich that the mentioned five will not be the last in his life! And now - “Twice two is four”!

The music started playing, and I almost choked on my tea. It's no joke - they sing a song in my honor! After all, Ruchkin is me! And even Vladimir! And Petrovich too! And in general, I’m studying in the fourth “B”! Everything matches! Everything except five. I didn't get any A's. Never. But in my diary there was something exactly the opposite.

Vovka! Did you really get an A?! “Mom jumped out from the table and rushed to hug and kiss me. - Finally! I dreamed about this so much! Why were you silent? How modest! And Vladik is a true friend! How happy he is for you! He even congratulated me on the radio! Five must be celebrated! I'll bake something delicious! - Mom immediately kneaded the dough and began to make pies, cheerfully singing: “Twice two is four, twice two is four.”

I wanted to shout that Vladik is not a friend, but a bastard! Everything is lying! There was no A! But the tongue did not turn at all. No matter how hard I tried. Mom was very happy. I never thought that my mother’s joy has such an effect on my tongue!

Well done, son! - Dad waved the newspaper. - Show me the five!

They collected our diaries,” I lied. - Maybe they’ll give it away tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow...

OK! When they hand it out, then we’ll admire it! And let's go to the circus! Now I'm off to get some ice cream for all of us! - Dad rushed off like a whirlwind, and I rushed into the room, to the phone.

Vladik picked up the phone.

Hello! - giggles. - Did you listen to the radio?

Have you gone completely crazy? - I hissed. - Parents here have lost their heads because of your stupid jokes! And it’s up to me to unwind! Where can I get them a five?

How is this where? - Vladik answered seriously. - Tomorrow at school. Come to me right now to do your homework.

Gritting my teeth, I went to Vladik. What else was left for me?..

In general, we spent two whole hours solving examples, problems... And all this instead of my favorite thriller “Cannibal Watermelons”! Nightmare! Well, Vladka, wait!

The next day, in mathematics class, Alevtina Vasilievna asked:

Who wants to review homework at the board?

Vlad poked me in the side. I groaned and raised my hand.

First time in life.

Ruchkin? - Alevtina Vasilievna was surprised. - Well, you are welcome!

And then... Then a miracle happened. I solved everything and explained it correctly. And in my diary a proud five turned red! Honestly, I had no idea that getting A’s was so nice! Those who don't believe, let them try...

On Sunday, as always, we drank tea and listened

the program “Call, they will sing for you.” Suddenly the radio started chattering again in Vladka’s voice:

Congratulations to Vladimir Petrovich Ruchkin from the fourth “B” with an A in Russian! Please give him the best song!

What-o-o-o?! Only the Russian language was still missing for me! I shuddered and looked at my mother with desperate hope - maybe I didn’t hear. But her eyes were shining.

How clever you are! - Mom exclaimed, smiling happily.

Nadezhda Teffi

Happy

Yes, I was happy once.
I long ago defined what happiness is, a very long time ago - at the age of six. And when it came to me, I didn’t recognize it right away. But I remembered what it should be like, and then I realized that I was happy.
* * *
I remember: I am six years old, my sister is four.
We ran for a long time after lunch along the long hall, caught up with each other, screamed and fell. Now we are tired and quiet.
We stand nearby, looking out the window at the muddy spring twilight street.
Spring twilight is always alarming and always sad.
And we are silent. We listen to the crystals of the candelabra tremble as carts pass along the street.
If we were big, we would think about people's anger, about insults, about our love that we insulted, and about the love that we insulted ourselves, and about the happiness that does not exist.
But we are children and we don't know anything. We just remain silent. We are terrified to turn around. It seems to us that the hall has already become completely dark and that this whole large, echoing house in which we live has darkened. Why is he so quiet now? Maybe everyone left it and forgot us, little girls, pressed against the window in a dark huge room?
Near my shoulder I see my sister’s frightened, round eye. She looks at me - should she cry or not?
And then I remember my impression of this day, so bright, so beautiful that I immediately forget both the dark house and the dull, dreary street.
- Lena! - I say loudly and cheerfully. - Lena! I saw a horse-drawn horse today!
I cannot tell her everything about the immensely joyful impression that the horse-drawn horse made on me.
The horses were white and ran quickly; the carriage itself was red or yellow, beautiful, there were a lot of people sitting in it, all strangers, so they could get to know each other and even play some quiet game. And behind on the step stood a conductor, all in gold - or maybe not all of it, but just a little, with buttons - and blew into a golden trumpet:
- Rram-rra-ra!
The sun itself rang in this pipe and flew out of it in golden-sounding splashes.
How can you tell it all? One can only say:
- Lena! I saw a horse-drawn horse!
And you don't need anything else. From my voice, from my face, she understood all the boundless beauty of this vision.
And can anyone really jump into this chariot of joy and rush to the sound of the sun trumpet?
- Rram-rra-ra!
No, not everyone. Fraulein says that you need to pay for it. That's why they don't take us there. We are locked in a boring, musty carriage with a rattling window, smelling of morocco and patchouli, and are not even allowed to press our nose to the glass.
But when we are big and rich, we will only ride horse-drawn horses. We will, we will, we will be happy!

Sergey Kutsko

WOLVES

The way village life is structured is that if you don’t go out into the forest before noon and take a walk through familiar mushroom and berry places, then by evening there’s nothing to run for, everything will be hidden.

One girl thought so too. The sun has just risen to the tops of the fir trees, and I already have a full basket in my hands, I’ve wandered far, but what mushrooms! She looked around with gratitude and was just about to leave when the distant bushes suddenly trembled and an animal came out into the clearing, its eyes tenaciously following the girl’s figure.

Oh, dog! - she said.

Cows were grazing somewhere nearby, and meeting a shepherd dog in the forest was not a big surprise to them. But the meeting with several more pairs of animal eyes put me in a daze...

“Wolves,” a thought flashed, “the road is not far, run...” Yes, the strength disappeared, the basket involuntarily fell out of his hands, his legs became weak and disobedient.

Mother! - this sudden cry stopped the flock, which had already reached the middle of the clearing. - People, help! - flashed over the forest three times.

As the shepherds later said: “We heard screams, we thought the children were playing around...” This is five kilometers from the village, in the forest!

The wolves slowly approached, the she-wolf walked ahead. This happens with these animals - the she-wolf becomes the head of the pack. Only her eyes were not as fierce as they were studying. They seemed to ask: “Well, man? What will you do now, when there are no weapons in your hands, and your relatives are not nearby?

The girl fell to her knees, covered her eyes with her hands and began to cry. Suddenly the thought of prayer came to her, as if something stirred in her soul, as if the words of her grandmother, remembered from childhood, were resurrected: “Ask the Mother of God! ”

The girl did not remember the words of the prayer. Making the sign of the cross, she asked the Mother of God, as if she were her mother, in the last hope of intercession and salvation.

When she opened her eyes, the wolves, passing the bushes, went into the forest. A she-wolf walked slowly ahead, head down.

Vladimir Zheleznyakov “Scarecrow”

A circle of their faces flashed in front of me, and I rushed around in it, like a squirrel in a wheel.

I should stop and leave.

The boys attacked me.

“For her legs! - Valka yelled. - For your legs!..”

They knocked me down and grabbed me by the legs and arms. I kicked and kicked as hard as I could, but they grabbed me and dragged me into the garden.

Iron Button and Shmakova dragged out a scarecrow mounted on a long stick. Dimka came out after them and stood to the side. The stuffed animal was in my dress, with my eyes, with my mouth from ear to ear. The legs were made of stockings stuffed with straw; instead of hair, there was tow and some feathers sticking out. On my neck, that is, the scarecrow, dangled a plaque with the words: “SCACHERY IS A TRAITOR.”

Lenka fell silent and somehow completely faded away.

Nikolai Nikolaevich realized that the limit of her story and the limit of her strength had come.

“And they were having fun around the stuffed animal,” said Lenka. - They jumped and laughed:

“Wow, our beauty-ah!”

“I waited!”

“I came up with an idea! I came up with an idea! - Shmakova jumped for joy. - Let Dimka light the fire!..”

After these words from Shmakova, I completely stopped being afraid. I thought: if Dimka sets it on fire, then maybe I’ll just die.

And at this time Valka - he was the first in time everywhere - stuck the scarecrow into the ground and sprinkled brushwood around it.

“I don’t have matches,” Dimka said quietly.

“But I have it!” - Shaggy put matches in Dimka’s hand and pushed him towards the scarecrow.

Dimka stood near the scarecrow, his head bowed low.

I froze - I waited in last time! Well, I thought he would look back and say: “Guys, Lenka is not to blame for anything... It’s all me!”

“Set it on fire!” - ordered the Iron Button.

I couldn’t stand it and screamed:

“Dimka! No need, Dimka-ah-ah!..”

And he was still standing near the stuffed animal - I could see his back, he was hunched over and seemed somehow small. Maybe because the scarecrow was on a long stick. Only he was small and weak.

“Well, Somov! - said the Iron Button. “Finally, go to the end!”

Dimka fell to his knees and lowered his head so low that only his shoulders stuck out, and his head was not visible at all. It turned out to be some kind of headless arsonist. He struck a match and a flame of fire grew over his shoulders. Then he jumped up and hurriedly ran to the side.

They dragged me close to the fire. Without looking away, I looked at the flames of the fire. Grandfather! I felt then how this fire engulfed me, how it burned, baked and bited, although only waves of its heat reached me.

I screamed, I screamed so much that they let me out of surprise.

When they released me, I rushed to the fire and began to kick it around with my feet, grabbing the burning branches with my hands - I didn’t want the scarecrow to burn. For some reason I really didn’t want this!

Dimka was the first to come to his senses.

“Are you crazy? “He grabbed my hand and tried to pull me away from the fire. - This is a joke! Don’t you understand jokes?”

I became strong and easily defeated him. She pushed him so hard that he flew upside down - only his heels flashed towards the sky. And she pulled the scarecrow out of the fire and began waving it over her head, stepping on everyone. The scarecrow had already caught fire, sparks were flying from it in different directions, and they all shied away in fear from these sparks.

They ran away.

And I got so dizzy, driving them away, that I couldn’t stop until I fell. There was a stuffed animal lying next to me. It was scorched, fluttering in the wind and that made it look like it was alive.

At first I lay with my eyes closed. Then she felt that she smelled something burning and opened her eyes - the scarecrow’s dress was smoking. I slammed my hand down on the smoldering hem and leaned back onto the grass.

There was a crunch of branches, retreating footsteps, and then there was silence.

Leo Tolstoy Swans

The swans flew in a herd from the cold side to the warm lands. They flew across the sea. They flew day and night, and another day and another night, without resting, they flew over the water. There was a full month in the sky, and the swans saw blue water far below them. All the swans were exhausted, flapping their wings; but they did not stop and flew on. Old, strong swans flew in front, and those who were younger and weaker flew behind. One young swan flew behind everyone. His strength weakened. He flapped his wings and could not fly any further. Then he, spreading his wings, went down. He descended closer and closer to the water; and his comrades further and further became whiter in the monthly light. The swan descended onto the water and folded its wings. The sea rose beneath him and rocked him. A flock of swans was barely visible as a white line in the bright sky. And in the silence you could barely hear the sound of their wings ringing. When they were completely out of sight, the swan bent its neck back and closed its eyes. He did not move, and only the sea, rising and falling in a wide strip, raised and lowered him. Before dawn, a light breeze began to sway the sea. And the water splashed into the white chest of the swan. The swan opened his eyes. The dawn reddened in the east, and the moon and stars became paler. The swan sighed, stretched out its neck and flapped its wings, rose up and flew, clinging to the water with its wings. He rose higher and higher and flew alone over the dark, rippling waves.

B. Vasiliev

“And the dawns here are quiet...”

Lisa thought he was smiling. She was angry, hated him and herself, and sat there. She didn’t know why she was sitting, just as she didn’t know why she was coming here. She almost never cried, because she was lonely and used to it, and now she wanted more than anything in the world to be pitied. To be spoken with kind words, stroked on the head, comforted and - she didn’t admit this to herself - maybe even kissed. But she couldn’t say that her mother kissed her for the last time five years ago and that she needed this kiss now as a guarantee of that wonderful tomorrow for which she lived on earth.

“Go to sleep,” he said. - I'm tired, it's too early for me to go.

And he yawned. Long, indifferent, with a howl. Lisa, biting her lips, rushed down, hit her knee painfully and flew out into the yard, slamming the door forcefully.

In the morning she heard how her father harnessed the official Dymok, how the guest said goodbye to his mother, how the gate creaked. She lay there pretending to be asleep, and tears crawled from under her closed eyelids.

At lunchtime the tipsy father returned. With a thud, he poured prickly pieces of bluish crushed sugar out of his hat onto the table and said in surprise:

- And he is a bird, our guest! Sahara told us to let us go, whatever. And we haven’t seen him in the general store for a year. Three whole kilos of sugar!..

Then he fell silent, patted his pockets for a long time and took out a crumpled piece of paper from his pouch:

“You need to study, Lisa. You become completely wild in the forest. Come in August: I’ll get you into a technical school with a dormitory.”

Signature and address. And nothing more - not even hello.

A month later, the mother died. The always gloomy father was now completely furious, drinking in the dark, and Lisa was still waiting for tomorrow, tightly locking the doors from her father’s friends at night. But from now on, this tomorrow was firmly connected with August, and, listening to the drunken screams behind the wall, Lisa re-read the worn-out note for the thousandth time.

But the war began, and instead of the city, Lisa ended up doing defense work. All summer she dug trenches and anti-tank fortifications, which the Germans carefully bypassed, got surrounded, got out of them and dug again, each time rolling further and further to the east. In late autumn, she ended up somewhere beyond Valdai, stuck to an anti-aircraft unit and therefore now ran to the 171st crossing...

Lisa liked Vaskov right away: when he stood in front of their formation, blinking his sleepy eyes in confusion. I liked his firm laconicism, peasant slowness and that special, masculine thoroughness that is perceived by all women as a guarantee of the inviolability of the family hearth. What happened was that everyone started making fun of the commandant: it was considered good manners. Liza did not participate in such conversations, but when the all-knowing Kiryanova announced with a laugh that the foreman could not resist the luxurious charms of the landlady, Liza suddenly flushed:

- This is not true!..

- Fell in love! – Kiryanova gasped triumphantly. – Our Brichkina has fallen in love, girls! I fell in love with a military man!

– Poor Lisa! – Gurvich sighed loudly. Then everyone started shouting and laughing, and Lisa burst into tears and ran into the forest.

She cried on a tree stump until Rita Osyanina found her.

- What are you doing, fool? We need to live easier. Easier, you know?

But Liza lived, suffocated from shyness, and the foreman - from service, and they would never have seen eye to eye if not for this incident. And so Lisa flew through the forest as if on wings.

“Afterwards we’ll sing with you, Lizaveta,” said the foreman. “Let’s carry out the combat order and sing...”

Lisa thought about his words and smiled, embarrassed by that powerful unfamiliar feeling that was stirring in her, flaring up on her elastic cheeks. And, thinking about him, she rushed past a noticeable pine tree, and when at the swamp she remembered, she remembered the beds, she no longer wanted to return. There was enough windfall here, and Lisa quickly chose a suitable pole.

Before climbing into the flabby muck, she listened secretly, and then busily took off her skirt.

Having tied it to the top of the pole, she carefully tucked her tunic under her belt and, pulling up her blue official leggings, stepped into the swamp.

This time no one walked ahead, pushing aside the dirt.

The liquid mess clung to her thighs and dragged behind her, and Lisa struggled forward, gasping and swaying. Step by step, numb from the icy water and not taking my eyes off the two pine trees on the island.

But it was not the dirt, not the cold, not the living, breathing soil under her feet that scared her. The loneliness was terrible, the dead, deathly silence hanging over the brown swamp. Lisa felt almost animal horror, and this horror not only did not disappear, but with each step it accumulated more and more in her, and she trembled helplessly and pitifully, afraid to look back, make an extra movement, or even sigh loudly.

She barely remembered how she got to the island. She crawled on her knees, leaned face down into the rotting grass and began to cry. She sobbed, smeared tears across her thick cheeks, shuddering from the cold, loneliness and disgusting fear.

She jumped up - the tears were still flowing. Sniffling, she passed the island, took aim at how to go further, and, without resting or gathering her strength, climbed into the swamp.

At first it was shallow, and Lisa managed to calm down and even became cheerful. The last piece remained and, no matter how difficult it was, then there was land, solid, motherland with grass and trees. And Lisa was already thinking about where she could wash herself, remembering all the puddles and casks and wondering whether she should rinse her clothes or wait until she left. There was absolutely nothing left there, she remembered the road well, with all the turns, and boldly expected to reach her people in an hour and a half.

It became more difficult to walk, the swamp reached up to the knees, but now with every step that shore was approaching, and Lisa could clearly, right down to the cracks, see the stump from which the foreman had jumped into the swamp. He jumped funny, clumsily: he could barely stand on his feet.

And Lisa again began to think about Vaskov and even began to smile. They will sing, they will definitely even sing, when the commandant fulfills the combat order and returns again to the patrol. You just have to cheat, trick him and lure him into the forest in the evening. And then... There we’ll see who is stronger: she or the landlady, who has only the advantages of being under the same roof with the foreman...

A huge brown bubble swelled in front of her. It was so unexpected, so fast and so close to her that Lisa, not having time to scream, instinctively rushed to the side. Just a step to the side, and my legs immediately lost support, hung somewhere in an unsteady void, and the swamp squeezed my hips like a soft vice. The long-accumulated horror suddenly splashed out at once, sending a sharp pain through my heart. Trying at all costs to hold on and climb out onto the path, Lisa leaned with all her weight onto the pole. The dry pole crunched loudly, and Lisa fell face down into the cold liquid mud.

There was no land. Her legs were slowly, terribly slowly dragged down, her arms rowed the swamp uselessly, and Lisa, gasping for breath, squirmed in the liquid mess. And the path was somewhere very close: a step, half a step from it, but these half steps were no longer possible to take.

- Help!.. Help!.. Help!..

An eerie lonely cry rang for a long time over the indifferent rusty swamp. He flew up to the tops of the pines, got tangled in the young foliage of the alder, fell until he wheezed, and again, with the last of his strength, flew up to the cloudless May sky.

Lisa saw this beautiful blue sky for a long time. Wheezing, she spat out dirt and reached out, reached out to him, reached out and believed.

The sun slowly rose above the trees, its rays fell on the swamp, and Lisa saw its light for the last time - warm, unbearably bright, like the promise of tomorrow. And until the last moment she believed that this would happen tomorrow for her too...

Konstantin Paustovsky

Badger nose

The lake near the shores was covered with heaps of yellow leaves. There were so many of them that we couldn't fish. The fishing lines lay on the leaves and did not sink.

We had to take an old boat out to the middle of the lake, where the water lilies were blooming and the blue water seemed black as tar.

There we caught colorful perches. They fought and sparkled in the grass, like fabulous Japanese roosters. We pulled out tin roach and ruffes with eyes like two small moons. The pikes flashed their teeth, small as needles, at us.

It was autumn in the sun and fogs. Through the fallen forests, distant clouds and thick blue air were visible. At night, in the thickets around us, low stars moved and trembled.

There was a fire burning in our parking lot. We burned it all day and night to drive away the wolves - they howled quietly along the far shores of the lake. They were disturbed by the smoke of the fire and cheerful human cries.

We were sure that the fire scared the animals, but one evening in the grass by the fire some animal began to snort angrily. He was not visible. He ran around us anxiously, rustling the tall grass, snorting and getting angry, but didn’t even stick his ears out of the grass.

The potatoes were being fried in a frying pan, a sharp, tasty smell came from them, and the animal obviously came running to this smell.

Was with us a little boy. He was only nine years old, but he tolerated nights in the forest and the cold of autumn dawns well. Much better than us adults, he noticed and told everything.

He was an inventor, but we adults really loved his inventions. We couldn’t, and didn’t want to, prove to him that he was telling a lie. Every day he came up with something new: he either heard fish whispering, or saw ants making a ferry for themselves across a stream of pine bark and cobwebs.

We pretended to believe him.

Everything that surrounded us seemed extraordinary: the late moon shining over the black lakes, and high clouds like mountains of pink snow, and even the familiar sea noise of tall pines.

The boy was the first to hear the animal’s snort and hissed at us to keep quiet. We became silent. We tried not to even breathe, although our hand involuntarily reached for the double-barreled gun - who knows what kind of animal it could be!

Half an hour later, the animal stuck out of the grass a wet black nose, similar to a pig’s snout. The nose sniffed the air for a long time and trembled with greed. Then a sharp muzzle with black piercing eyes appeared from the grass. Finally the striped skin appeared.

A small badger crawled out of the thicket. He pressed his paw and looked at me carefully. Then he snorted in disgust and took a step towards the potatoes.

It fried and hissed, splashing boiling lard. I wanted to shout to the animal that it would get burned, but I was too late - the badger jumped to the frying pan and stuck his nose into it...

It smelled like burnt leather. The badger squealed and rushed back into the grass with a desperate cry. He ran and screamed throughout the forest, broke bushes and spat in indignation and pain.

There was confusion on the lake and in the forest. Without time, the frightened frogs began to scream, the birds were alarmed, and right at the shore, like a cannon shot, a pound-sized pike struck.

In the morning the boy woke me up and told me that he himself had just seen a badger treating its burnt nose. I didn't believe it.

I sat down by the fire and listened sleepily to the morning voices of the birds. In the distance, white-tailed sandpipers whistled, ducks quacked, cranes cooed in the dry moss swamps, fish splashed, and turtle doves cooed quietly. I didn't want to move.

The boy pulled me by the hand. He was offended. He wanted to prove to me that he didn't lie. He called me to go see how the badger was being treated.

I reluctantly agreed. We carefully made our way into the thicket, and among the thickets of heather I saw a rotten pine stump. He smelled of mushrooms and iodine.

A badger stood near a stump, with its back to us. He picked up the stump and stuck his burnt nose into the middle of the stump, into the wet and cold dust.

He stood motionless and cooled his unfortunate nose, while another little badger ran and snorted around him. He was worried and pushed our badger in the stomach with his nose. Our badger growled at him and kicked with his furry hind paws.

Then he sat down and cried. He looked at us with round and wet eyes, moaned and licked his sore nose with his rough tongue. It was as if he was asking for help, but we could do nothing to help him.

A year later, on the shores of the same lake, I met a badger with a scar on its nose. He sat by the water and tried to catch the dragonflies rattling like tin with his paw. I waved my hand at him, but he sneezed angrily in my direction and hid in the lingonberry bushes.

Since then I haven't seen him again.

"Letter to God"

E that happened in late XIX centuries. Petersburg. Christmas Eve. A cold, piercing wind blows from the bay. Fine prickly snow is falling. Horses' hooves clatter on the cobblestones, shop doors slam - things are done latest purchases before the holiday. Everyone is in a hurry to get home quickly.
T Only a little boy slowly wanders along a snowy street.

ABOUT Every now and then he takes his cold, reddened hands out of the pockets of his old coat and tries to warm them with his breath. Then he stuffs them deeper into his pockets again and moves on. Here he stops at the bakery window and looks at the pretzels and bagels displayed behind the glass.
D The store door swung open, letting out another customer, and the aroma of freshly baked bread wafted out of it. The boy swallowed his saliva convulsively, stomped on the spot and wandered on.
N Dusk is falling imperceptibly. There are fewer and fewer passers-by. The boy pauses near a building with lights burning in the windows, and, rising on tiptoe, tries to look inside. After a moment's hesitation, he opens the door.
WITH The old clerk was late at work today. He's in no hurry. He has been living alone for a long time and on holidays he feels his loneliness especially acutely. The clerk sat and thought with bitterness that he had no one to celebrate Christmas with, no one to give gifts to. At this time the door opened. The old man looked up and saw the boy.
- Uncle, uncle, I need to write a letter!- the boy said quickly.
- Do you have money?- the clerk asked sternly.
M The boy, fiddling with his hat in his hands, took a step back. And then the lonely clerk remembered that today was Christmas Eve and that he really wanted to give someone a gift. He took out a blank sheet of paper, dipped his pen in ink and wrote: “Petersburg. 6th January. Mr...."
-What is the gentleman's last name?
- This is not sir,- muttered the boy, not yet fully believing his luck.
- Oh, is this a lady?- the clerk asked smiling.
- No no!- the boy said quickly.
-So who do you want to write a letter to?- the old man was surprised.
- To Jesus.
-How dare you make fun of an elderly person?- the clerk was indignant and wanted to show the boy the door. But then I saw tears in the child’s eyes and remembered that today was Christmas Eve. He felt ashamed of his anger, and in a warmer voice he asked:
-What do you want to write to Jesus?
- My mother always taught me to ask God for help when things are difficult. She said God's name is Jesus Christ- the boy came closer to the clerk and continued. - And yesterday she fell asleep, and I just can’t wake her up. There’s not even bread at home, I’m so hungry,- He wiped the tears that had come to his eyes with his palm.
- How did you wake her up?- asked the old man, rising from his table.
- I kissed her.
- Is she breathing?
- What are you saying, uncle, do people breathe in their sleep?
- Jesus Christ has already received your letter,- said the old man, hugging the boy by the shoulders. - He told me to take care of you, and took your mother with him.
WITH the old clerk thought: “ My mother, when you left for another world, you told me to be a good person and a pious Christian. I forgot your order, but now you won’t be ashamed of me».

Boris GANAGO

B. Ekimov. “Speak, mother, speak...”

In the mornings the mobile phone now rang. The black box came to life:
The light came on in it, cheerful music sang and the daughter’s voice announced, as if she were nearby:
- Mom, hello! Are you okay? Well done! Questions or suggestions? Amazing! Then I kiss you. Be, be!
The box was rotten and silent. Old Katerina marveled at her and could not get used to it. It's like a little thing - a matchbox. No wires. He lays and lies there and suddenly his daughter’s voice begins to play and light up:
- Mom, hello! Are you okay? Have you thought about going? Look... Any questions? Kiss. Be, be!
But the city where my daughter lives is one and a half hundred miles away. And not always easy, especially in bad weather.
But this year the autumn has been long and warm. Near the farm, on the surrounding mounds, the grass turned red, and the poplar and willow fields near the Don stood green, and in the courtyards pears and cherries grew green like summer, although by time it was high time for them to burn out with a red and crimson quiet fire.
The bird's flight took a long time. The goose slowly went south, calling somewhere in the foggy, stormy sky a quiet ong-ong... ong-ong...
But what can we say about the bird, if Grandma Katerina, a withered, hunchbacked old woman, but still an agile old woman, could not get ready to leave.
“I throw it with my mind, I won’t throw it…” she complained to her neighbor. - Should I go or not?.. Or maybe it will stay warm? They are talking on the radio: the weather has completely broken down. Now the fast has begun, but the magpies have not come to the yard. It's warm and warm. Back and forth... Christmas and Epiphany. And then it’s time to think about seedlings. There’s no point in going there and getting tights.
The neighbor just sighed: it was still so far away from spring, from seedlings.
But old Katerina, rather convincing herself, took out one more argument from her bosom - a mobile phone.
- Mobile! - she proudly repeated the words of the city grandson. - One word - mobile. I pressed the button, and suddenly - Maria. Pressed another - Kolya. Who do you want to feel sorry for? Why shouldn't we live? - she asked. - Why leave? Throw away the house, the farm...
This was not the first conversation. I talked with the children, with the neighbor, but more often with myself.
In recent years, she went to spend the winter with her daughter in the city. Age is one thing: it’s difficult to light the stove every day and carry water from the well. Through mud and ice. You will fall and hurt yourself. And who will lift it?
The farmstead, which until recently was populous, with the death of the collective farm, dispersed, moved away, died out. Only old people and drunks remained. And they don’t carry bread, not to mention the rest. It's hard for an old person to spend the winter. So she left to join her people.
But it’s not easy to part with a farm, with a nest. What to do with small animals: Tuzik, cat and chickens? Shove it around people?.. And my heart aches about the house. The drunkards will climb in and the last saucepans will be stuck.
And it’s not too much fun to settle into new corners in old age. Even though they are our own children, the walls are foreign and life is completely different. Guest and look around.
So I was thinking: should I go, should I not go?.. And then they brought a phone for help - a “mobile”. They explained for a long time about the buttons: which ones to press and which ones not to touch. Usually my daughter called from the city in the morning.
Cheerful music will begin to sing, and the light will flash in the box. At first, it seemed to old Katerina that her daughter’s face would appear there, as if on a small television. Only a voice was announced, distant and not for long:
- Mom, hello! Are you okay? Well done. Any questions? That's good. Kiss. Be, be.
Before you know it, the light has already gone out, the box has fallen silent.
In the first days, old Katerina only marveled at such a miracle. Previously, on the farm there was a telephone in the collective farm office. Everything is familiar there: wires, a big black tube, you can talk for a long time. But that phone floated away with the collective farm. Now there is “mobile”. And then thank God.
- Mother! Do you hear me?! Alive and healthy? Well done. Kiss.
Before you even have time to open your mouth, the box has already gone out.
“What kind of passion is this?” the old woman grumbled. - Not a telephone, waxwing. He crowed: be it... So be it. And here…
And here, that is, in the life of the farmstead, the old man’s life, there was a lot of things that I wanted to talk about.
- Mom, can you hear me?
- I hear, I hear... Is that you, daughter? And the voice doesn’t seem to be yours, it’s somehow hoarse. Are you sick? Look, dress warmly. Otherwise, you are urban - fashionable, tie a down scarf. And don't let them look. Health is more valuable. Because I just had a dream, such a bad one. Why? It seems like there is some cattle in our yard. Alive. Right on the doorstep. She has a horse's tail, horns on her head, and a goat's muzzle. What kind of passion is this? And why would that be?
“Mom,” came a stern voice from the phone. - Talk to the point, and not about goat faces. We explained to you: the tariff.
“Forgive me for Christ’s sake,” the old woman came to her senses. They really warned her when the phone was delivered that it was expensive and she needed to talk briefly about the most important thing.
But what is the most important thing in life? Especially among old people... And in fact, I saw such passion at night: a horse’s tail and a scary goat’s face.
So think about it, what is this for? Probably not good.
Another day passed again, followed by another. The old woman’s life went on as usual: get up, tidy up, release the chickens; feed and water your small living creatures and even have something to peck at yourself. And then he’ll go and hook things up. It’s not for nothing that they say: even though the house is small, you are not told to sit.
A spacious farmstead that once fed a large family: a vegetable garden, a potato garden, and levada. Sheds, cubbyholes, chicken coop. Summer kitchen-mazanka, cellar with exit. Pletnevaya town, fence. Earth that needs to be dug little by little while it’s warm. And cut firewood, cutting it wide with a hand saw. Coal has become expensive these days and you can’t buy it.
Little by little the day dragged on, cloudy and warm. Ong-ong... ong-ong... - was heard sometimes. This goose went south, flock after flock. They flew away to return in the spring. But on the ground, on the farm, it was cemetery-like quiet. Having left, people did not return here either in the spring or in the summer. And therefore, rare houses and farmsteads seemed to crawl apart like crustaceans, shunning each other.
Another day has passed. And in the morning it was slightly frosty. Trees, bushes and dry grass stood in a light layer of frost - white fluffy frost. Old Katerina, going out into the courtyard, looked around at this beauty, rejoicing, but she should have looked down at her feet. She walked and walked, stumbled, fell, hitting a rhizome painfully.
The day started off awkwardly and just didn't go well.
As always in the morning, the mobile phone lit up and began to sing.
- Hello, my daughter, hello. Just one title: alive. “I’m so upset now,” she complained. - Either the leg played along, or maybe the slime. Where, where... - she became annoyed. - In the courtyard. I went to open the gate at night. And there, near the gate, there is a black pear. Do you love her. She's sweet. I’ll make you compote from it. Otherwise I would have liquidated it long ago. Near this pear tree...
“Mom,” a distant voice came through the phone, “be more specific about what happened, and not about a sweet pear.”
- And that’s what I’m telling you. There, the root crawled out of the ground like a snake. But I walked and didn’t look. Yes, there’s also a stupid-faced cat poking around under your feet. This root... Letos Volodya asked how many times: take it away for Christ’s sake. He's on the move. Chernomyaska...
- Mom, please be more specific. About myself, not about the black meat. Don't forget that this is a mobile phone, a tariff. What hurts? Didn't you break anything?
“It seems like I didn’t break it,” the old woman understood everything. - I'm adding a cabbage leaf.
That was the end of the conversation with my daughter. I had to explain the rest to myself: “What hurts, what doesn’t hurt... Everything hurts, every bone. Such a life is behind..."
And, driving away bitter thoughts, the old woman went about her usual activities in the yard and in the house. But I tried to huddle more under the roof so as not to fall. And then she sat down near the spinning wheel. A fluffy tow, a woolen thread, the measured rotation of the wheel of an ancient self-spinner. And thoughts, like a thread, stretch and stretch. And outside the window it’s an autumn day, like twilight. And it seems chilly. It would be necessary to heat it, but the firewood is tight. Suddenly we really have to spend the winter.
At the right time, I turned on the radio, waiting for words about the weather. But after a short silence, the soft, gentle voice of a young woman came from the loudspeaker:
- Do your bones hurt?..
These heartfelt words were so fitting and appropriate that the answer came naturally:
- They hurt, my daughter...
“Are your arms and legs aching?” a kind voice asked, as if guessing and knowing fate.
- There’s no way to save me... We were young and didn’t smell it. In milkmaids and pig farms. And no shoes. And then they got into rubber boots, in winter and summer. So they force me...
“Your back hurts...” a female voice cooed softly, as if bewitching.
- My daughter will get sick... For centuries she carried chuvals and wahli with straw on her hump. How not to get sick... Such is life...
Life really was not easy: war, orphanhood, hard collective farm work.
The gentle voice from the loudspeaker spoke and spoke, and then fell silent.
The old woman even cried, scolding herself: “Stupid sheep... Why are you crying?..” But she cried. And the tears seemed to make it easier.
And then, quite unexpectedly, at an inopportune lunch hour, the music started playing and my mobile phone woke up. The old woman was frightened:
- Daughter, daughter... What happened? Who's not sick? And I was alarmed: you’re not calling on time. Don't hold a grudge against me, daughter. I know that the phone is expensive, it's a lot of money. But I really almost died. Tama, about this stick... - She came to her senses: - Lord, I’m talking about this stick again, forgive me, my daughter...
From afar, many kilometers away, my daughter’s voice was heard:
- Talk, mom, talk...
- So I’m playing guitar. It's kind of a mess now. And then there’s this cat... Yes, this root is creeping under my feet, from a pear tree. For us old people, everything is in the way now. I would completely eliminate this pear tree, but you love it. Steam it and dry it, as usual... Again, I’m doing the wrong thing... Forgive me, my daughter. Can you hear me?..
In a distant city, her daughter heard her and even saw, closing her eyes, her old mother: small, bent, in a white scarf. I saw it, but suddenly felt how unsteady and unreliable it all was: telephone communication, vision.
“Tell me, mom...” she asked and was afraid of only one thing: suddenly this voice and this life would end, and perhaps forever. - Talk, mom, talk...

Vladimir Tendryakov.

Bread for dogs

One evening my father and I were sitting on the porch at home.

Recently, my father had a kind of dark face, red eyelids, in some way he reminded me of the station master, walking along the station square in a red hat.

Suddenly, below, under the porch, a dog seemed to grow out of the ground. She had deserted, dull, unwashed yellow eyes and abnormally disheveled fur on the sides and back in gray clumps. She gazed at us for a minute or two with her empty gaze and disappeared as instantly as she had appeared.

Why is her fur growing like that? - I asked.

The father paused and reluctantly explained:

Falls out... From hunger. Its owner himself is probably going bald from hunger.

And it was as if I was doused with bath steam. I seem to have found the most, most unfortunate creature in the village. There are no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, but someone will take pity, even if secretly, ashamed, to themselves, No, no, no, and there will be a fool like me, who will slip them some bread. And the dog... Even the father now felt sorry not for the dog, but for its unknown owner - “he’s going bald from hunger.” The dog will die, and not even Abram will be found to clean it up.

The next day I was sitting on the porch in the morning with my pockets filled with pieces of bread. I sat and waited patiently to see if the same one would appear...

She appeared, just like yesterday, suddenly, silently, staring at me with empty, unwashed eyes. I moved to take out the bread, and she shied away... But out of the corner of her eye she managed to see the bread taken out, froze, and stared from afar at my hands - empty, without expression.

Go... Yes, go. Don't be afraid.

She looked and did not move, ready to disappear at any second. She did not believe either the gentle voice, or the ingratiating smiles, or the bread in her hand. No matter how much I begged, it didn’t come, but it didn’t disappear either.

After struggling for half an hour, I finally gave up the bread. Without taking her empty, uninvolved eyes off me, she approached the piece sideways, sideways. A jump - and... not a piece, not a dog.

In the next morning - new meeting, with the same deserted glances, with the same unbending distrust of the affection in the voice, of the kindly extended bread. The piece was only grabbed when it was thrown to the ground. I couldn’t give her the second piece anymore.

The same thing happened on the third morning and on the fourth... We didn’t miss a single day without meeting, but we didn’t become closer to each other. I was never able to train her to take bread from my hands. I have never seen any expression in her yellow, empty, shallow eyes - not even a dog's fear, not to mention a dog's tenderness and friendly disposition.

Looks like I've encountered a victim of time here too. I knew that some exiles ate dogs, baited them, killed them, butchered them. Probably my friend also fell into their hands. They couldn’t kill her, but they killed her trust in people forever. And it seemed like she didn’t particularly trust me. Raised by a hungry street, could she imagine such a fool who was ready to give food just like that, without demanding anything in return... not even gratitude.

Yes, even gratitude. This is a kind of payment, and for me it was quite enough that I feed someone, support someone’s life, which means that I myself have the right to eat and live.

I did not feed the dog, which was peeling from hunger, with pieces of bread, but my conscience.

I won’t say that my conscience really liked this suspicious food. My conscience continued to be inflamed, but not so much, not life-threatening.

That month, the station manager, who, as part of his duty, had to wear a red hat along the station square, shot himself. He didn’t think of finding an unfortunate little dog for himself to feed every day, tearing the bread off himself.

Vitaly Zakrutkin. Mother of man

On this September night, the sky trembled, trembled frequently, glowed crimson, reflecting the fires blazing below, and neither the moon nor the stars were visible on it. Near and distant cannon salvos thundered over the dully humming earth. Everything around was flooded with an uncertain, dim copper-red light, an ominous rumbling could be heard from everywhere, and indistinct, frightening noises crawled from all sides...

Huddled to the ground, Maria lay in a deep furrow. Above her, barely visible in the vague twilight, a thick thicket of corn rustled and swayed with dried panicles. Biting her lips in fear, covering her ears with her hands, Maria stretched out in the hollow of the furrow. She wanted to squeeze into the hardened, grass-overgrown plowed land, cover herself with earth, so as not to see or hear what was happening now on the farm.

She lay down on her stomach and buried her face in the dry grass. But lying there for a long time was painful and uncomfortable for her - the pregnancy was making itself felt. Inhaling the bitter smell of grass, she turned on her side, lay there for a while, then lay down on her back. Above, leaving a trail of fire, buzzing and whistling, rockets flashed past, and tracer bullets pierced the sky with green and red arrows. From below, from the farm, a sickening, suffocating smell of smoke and burning lingered.

Lord,” Maria whispered, sobbing, “send me death, Lord... I have no more strength... I can’t... send me death, I ask you, God...

She rose, knelt, and listened. “Whatever happens,” she thought in despair, “it’s better to die there, with everyone.” After waiting a little, looking around like a hunted she-wolf, and seeing nothing in the scarlet, moving darkness, Maria crawled to the edge of the corn field. From here, from the top of a sloping, almost inconspicuous hill, the farmstead was clearly visible. It was a kilometer and a half away, no more, and what Maria saw penetrated her with mortal cold.

All thirty houses of the farm were on fire. Slanting tongues of flame, swayed by the wind, broke through black clouds of smoke, raising thick scatterings of fiery sparks to the disturbed sky. Along the only farm street, illuminated by the glow of the fire, German soldiers walked leisurely with long flaming torches in their hands. They stretched torches to the thatched and reed roofs of houses, barns, chicken coops, not missing anything on their way, not even the most strewn coil or dog kennel, and after them new strands of fire flared up, and reddish sparks flew and flew towards the sky.

Two strong explosions shook the air. They followed one after another west side farm, and Maria realized that the Germans had blown up a new brick cowshed, built by the collective farm just before the war.

All the surviving farmers - there were about a hundred of them, along with women and children - the Germans drove them out of their houses and gathered them in an open place, behind the farm, where there was a collective farm current in the summer. A kerosene lantern was swinging on a current, suspended on a high pole. Its weak, flickering light seemed like a barely noticeable point. Maria knew this place well. A year ago, shortly after the start of the war, she and the women from her brigade were stirring grain on the threshing floor. Many cried, remembering their husbands, brothers, and children who had gone to the front. But the war seemed distant to them, and they did not know then that its bloody wave would reach their inconspicuous, small farm, lost in the hilly steppe. And on this terrible September night, their native farm was burning down before their eyes, and they themselves, surrounded by machine gunners, stood on the current, like a flock of dumb sheep on the rear, and did not know what awaited them...

Maria's heart was pounding, her hands were shaking. She jumped up and wanted to rush there, towards the current, but fear stopped her. Backing away, she crouched to the ground again, sank her teeth into her hands to muffle the heart-rending scream bursting from her chest. So Maria lay for a long time, sobbing like a child, suffocating from the acrid smoke creeping up the hill.

The farm was burning down. The gun salvos began to subside. In the darkened sky the steady rumble of heavy bombers flying somewhere was heard. From the side of the current, Maria heard a woman's hysterical crying and short, angry cries of the Germans. Accompanied by submachine gun soldiers, a discordant crowd of farmers slowly moved along the country road. The road ran along a corn field very close, about forty meters away.

Maria held her breath and pressed her chest to the ground. “Where are they driving them?” a feverish thought beat in her feverish brain. “Are they really going to shoot? There are small children, innocent women...” Opening her eyes wide, she looked at the road. A crowd of farmers wandered past her. Three women were carrying babies in their arms. Maria recognized them. These were two of her neighbors, young soldiers whose husbands had gone to the front just before the Germans arrived, and the third was an evacuated teacher, she gave birth to a daughter here on the farm. The older children hobbled along the road, holding on to the hems of their mothers' skirts, and Maria recognized both mothers and children... Uncle Korney walked awkwardly on his homemade crutches; his leg had been taken away during that German war. Supporting each other, two decrepit old widowers walked, grandfather Kuzma and grandfather Nikita. Every summer they guarded the collective farm's melon plant and more than once treated Maria to juicy, cool watermelons. The farmers walked quietly, and as soon as one of the women began to cry loudly, sobbingly, a German in a helmet immediately approached her and knocked her down with blows from a machine gun. The crowd stopped. Grabbing the fallen woman by the collar, the German lifted her, quickly and angrily muttered something, pointing his hand forward...

Peering into the strange luminous twilight, Maria recognized almost all the farmers. They walked with baskets, with buckets, with bags on their shoulders, they walked, obeying the short shouts of the machine gunners. None of them said a word, only the crying of children was heard in the crowd. And only at the top of the hill, when for some reason the column was delayed, a heartbreaking cry was heard:

Bastards! Pala-a-chi! Fascist freaks! I don't want your Germany! I won't be your farmhand, you bastards!

Maria recognized the voice. Fifteen-year-old Sanya Zimenkova, a Komsomol member, the daughter of a farm tractor driver who had gone to the front, was screaming. Before the war, Sanya was in seventh grade and lived in a boarding school in a distant regional center, but the school had not been open for a year, Sanya came to her mother and stayed on the farm.

Sanechka, what are you doing? Shut up, daughter! - the mother began to wail. Please shut up! They will kill you, my child!

I will not remain silent! - Sanya shouted even louder. - Let them kill, damned bandits!

Maria heard a short burst of machine gun fire. The women began to voice hoarsely. The Germans croaked in barking voices. The crowd of farmers began to move away and disappeared behind the top of the hill.

A sticky, cold fear fell on Maria. “It was Sanya who was killed,” a terrible guess struck her like lightning. She waited a little and listened. Human voices were not heard anywhere, only machine guns were tapping dully somewhere in the distance. Behind the copse, in the eastern hamlet, flares flared up here and there. They hung in the air, illuminating the mutilated earth with a dead yellowish light, and after two or three minutes, flowing out in fiery drops, they went out. In the east, three kilometers from the farmstead, was the front line of the German defense. Maria was there with other farmers: the Germans were forcing residents to dig trenches and communication passages. They wound in a sinuous line along the eastern slope of the hill. For many months, fearing the darkness, the Germans illuminated their defense line with rockets at night in order to notice the chains of attacking Soviet soldiers in time. And the Soviet machine gunners - Maria saw this more than once - used tracer bullets to shoot enemy missiles, cut them apart, and they, fading away, fell to the ground. So it was now: machine guns crackled from the direction of the Soviet trenches, and the green lines of bullets rushed towards one rocket, to a second, to a third and extinguished them...

“Maybe Sanya is alive?” Maria thought. Maybe she was just wounded and, poor thing, she’s lying on the road, bleeding? Coming out of the thicket of corn, Maria looked around. There is no one around. An empty grassy lane stretched along the hill. The farm was almost burnt down, only here and there flames still flared up, and sparks flickered over the ashes. Pressing herself against the boundary at the edge of the corn field, Maria crawled to the place from where she thought she heard Sanya’s scream and shots. It was painful and difficult to crawl. At the boundary, tough tumbleweed bushes, blown by the winds, clung together, they pricked her knees and elbows, and Maria was barefoot, wearing only an old chintz dress. So, undressed, last morning, at dawn, she ran away from the farm and now cursed herself for not taking a coat, a scarf, and putting on stockings and shoes.

She crawled slowly, half-dead with fear. She often stopped, listened to the dull, guttural sounds of distant shooting, and crawled again. It seemed to her that everything around was humming: both the sky and the earth, and that somewhere in the most inaccessible depths of the earth this heavy, mortal hum also did not stop.

She found Sanya where she thought. The girl lay prostrate in the ditch, her thin arms outstretched and her bare left leg uncomfortably bent under her. Barely discerning her body in the unsteady darkness, Maria pressed herself close to her, felt the sticky wetness on her warm shoulder with her cheek, and put her ear to her small, sharp chest. The girl’s heart beat unevenly: it froze, then pounded in fitful tremors. "Alive!" - thought Maria.

Looking around, she stood up, took Sanya in her arms and ran to the saving corn. The short path seemed endless to her. She stumbled, breathed hoarsely, afraid that she would drop Sanya, fall and never rise again. No longer seeing anything, not understanding that the dry stalks of corn were rustling around her like a tinny rustle, Maria sank to her knees and lost consciousness...

She woke up from Sanya’s heart-breaking moan. The girl lay under her, choking from the blood filling her mouth. Blood covered Maria's face. She jumped up, rubbed her eyes with the hem of her dress, lay down next to Sanya, and pressed her whole body against her.

Sanya, my baby,” Maria whispered, choking on tears, “open your eyes, my poor child, my little orphan... Open your little eyes, say at least one word...

With trembling hands, Maria tore off a piece of her dress, raised Sanya’s head, and began wiping the girl’s mouth and face with a piece of washed chintz. She touched her carefully, kissed her forehead, salty with blood, her warm cheeks, the thin fingers of her submissive, lifeless hands.

Sanya’s chest was wheezing, squelching, bubbling. Stroking the girl’s childish, angular-columnar legs with her palm, Maria felt with horror how Sanya’s narrow feet were getting colder under her hand.

“Come on, baby,” she began to beg Sanya. - Take a break, my dear... Don’t die, Sanechka... Don’t leave me alone... It’s me with you, Aunt Maria. Do you hear, baby? You and I are the only two left, only two...

The corn rustled monotonously above them. The cannon fire died down. The sky darkened, only somewhere far away, behind the forest, the reddish reflections of the flame still shuddered. That early morning hour came when thousands of people killing each other - both those who, like a gray tornado, rushed to the east, and those who with their breasts held back the movement of the tornado, were exhausted, tired of mutilating the earth with mines and shells and, stupefied by the roar, smoke and soot, they stopped their terrible work to catch their breath in the trenches, rest a little and begin the difficult, bloody harvest again...

Sanya died at dawn. No matter how hard Maria tried to warm the mortally wounded girl with her body, no matter how she pressed her hot chest against her, no matter how she hugged her, nothing helped. Sanya’s hands and feet grew cold, the hoarse bubbling in her throat ceased, and she began to freeze all over.

Maria closed Sanya’s slightly open eyelids, folded her scratched, stiff hands with traces of blood and purple ink on her fingers on her chest, and silently sat down next to the dead girl. Now, in these moments, Mary’s heavy, inconsolable grief - the death of her husband and little son, hanged by the Germans two days ago on the old farm apple tree - seemed to float away, shrouded in fog, wilted in the face of this new death, and Maria, pierced by a sharp sudden thought, realized that her grief was only a drop invisible to the world in that terrible, wide river of human grief, a black river, illuminated by fires, which, flooding, destroying the banks, spread wider and wider and rushed there faster and faster , to the east, moving away from Mary what she lived in this world for all her short twenty-nine years...

Boris Ganago

MIRROR

Dot, dot, comma,

Minus, the face is crooked.

Stick, stick, cucumber -

So the little man came out.

With this poem Nadya finished the drawing. Then, fearing that she would not be understood, she signed under it: “It’s me.” She carefully examined her creation and decided that it was missing something.

Young artist she went to the mirror and began to look at herself: what else needs to be completed so that anyone can understand who is depicted in the portrait?

Nadya loved to dress up and twirl in front of a large mirror, and tried different hairstyles. This time the girl tried on her mother’s hat with a veil.

She wanted to look mysterious and romantic, like the long-legged girls showing fashion on TV. Nadya imagined herself as an adult, cast a languid glance in the mirror and tried to walk with the gait of a fashion model. It didn't turn out very nicely, and when she stopped abruptly, the hat slid down onto her nose.

It’s good that no one saw her at that moment. If only we could laugh! In general, she didn’t like being a fashion model at all.

The girl took off her hat, and then her gaze fell on her grandmother’s hat. Unable to resist, she tried it on. And she froze, making an amazing discovery: she looked exactly like her grandmother. She just didn't have any wrinkles yet. Bye.

Now Nadya knew what she would become in many years. True, this future seemed very distant to her...

It became clear to Nadya why her grandmother loves her so much, why she watches her pranks with tender sadness and secretly sighs.

There were footsteps. Nadya hastily put her hat back in place and ran to the door. On the threshold she met... herself, only not so frisky. But the eyes were exactly the same: childishly surprised and joyful.

Nadya hugged her future self and quietly asked:

Grandma, is it true that you were me as a child?

Grandma paused, then smiled mysteriously and took out an old album from the shelf. After flipping through a few pages, she showed a photograph of a little girl who looked very much like Nadya.

That's what I was like.

Oh, really, you look like me! – the granddaughter exclaimed in delight.

Or maybe you are like me? – Grandmother asked, slyly squinting her eyes.

It doesn't matter who looks like whom. The main thing is that they are similar,” the little girl insisted.

Isn't it important? And look who I looked like...

And the grandmother began to leaf through the album. There were all sorts of faces there. And what faces! And each was beautiful in its own way. The peace, dignity and warmth that radiated from them attracted the eye. Nadya noticed that all of them - small children and gray-haired old men, young ladies and fit military men - were somehow similar to each other... And to her.

Tell me about them,” the girl asked.

The grandmother hugged her blood to herself, and a story flowed about their family, going back from ancient centuries.

The time for cartoons had already come, but the girl didn’t want to watch them. She was discovering something amazing, something that had been there for a long time, but living inside her.

Do you know the history of your grandfathers, great-grandfathers, the history of your family? Maybe this story is your mirror?

Dragunsky “The secret becomes apparent

I heard my mother in the hallway say to someone:

The secret always becomes clear.

And when she entered the room, I asked:

What does this mean, mom: “The secret becomes clear”?

“And this means that if someone acts dishonestly, they will still find out about him, and he will be very ashamed, and he will be punished,” said my mother. - Got it?.. Go to bed!

I brushed my teeth, went to bed, but did not sleep, but kept thinking: how is it possible that the secret becomes apparent? And I didn’t sleep for a long time, and when I woke up, it was morning, dad was already at work, and mom and I were alone. I brushed my teeth again and started eating breakfast.

First I ate the egg. It was still tolerable, because I ate one yolk, and chopped the white with the shell so that it was not visible. But then mom brought a whole plate of semolina porridge.

Eat! - Mom said. - Without any talking!

I said:

I can't see semolina porridge!

But mom screamed:

Look who you look like! Looks like Koschey! Eat. You must get better.

I said:

I'm choking on her!

Then my mother sat down next to me, hugged me by the shoulders and asked tenderly:

Do you want us to go with you to the Kremlin?

Well, of course... I don’t know anything more beautiful than the Kremlin. I was there in the Chamber of Facets and in the Armory, I stood near the Tsar Cannon and I know where Ivan the Terrible was sitting. And there’s a lot of interesting stuff there too. So I quickly answered my mother:

Of course, I want to go to the Kremlin! Even more!

Then mom smiled:

Well, eat all the porridge and let's go. In the meantime, I'll wash the dishes. Just remember - you have to eat every last bit!

And mom went into the kitchen. And I was left alone with the porridge. I spanked her with a spoon. Then I added salt. I tried it - well, it’s impossible to eat! Then I thought that maybe there was not enough sugar? I sprinkled it with sand and tried it... It got even worse. I don't like porridge, I tell you.

And it was also very thick. If it were liquid, then it would be a different matter; I would close my eyes and drink it. Then I took it and added boiling water to the porridge. It was still slippery, sticky and disgusting.

The main thing is that when I swallow, my throat itself contracts and pushes this mess back out. It's a shame! After all, I want to go to the Kremlin! And then I remembered that we have horseradish. With horseradish, it seems you can eat anything! I took the whole jar and poured it into the porridge, and when I tried a little, my eyes immediately popped out of my head and my breathing stopped, and I probably lost consciousness, because I took the plate, quickly ran to the window and threw the porridge out onto the street. Then he immediately returned and sat down at the table.

At this time my mother entered. She immediately looked at the plate and was delighted:

What a guy Deniska is! I ate all the porridge to the bottom! Well, get up, get dressed, working people, let's go for a walk to the Kremlin! - And she kissed me.

At that same moment the door opened and a policeman entered the room. He said:

Hello! - and ran to the window and looked down. - And also an intelligent person.

What you need? - Mom asked sternly.

What a shame! - The policeman even stood at attention. - The state provides you with new housing, with all the amenities and, by the way, with a garbage chute, and you pour all kinds of crap out the window!

Don't slander. I don't spill anything!

Oh, don’t you pour it out?! - The policeman laughed sarcastically. And, opening the door to the corridor, he shouted: “Victim!”

And then some guy came in to see us.

As soon as I looked at him, I immediately realized that I would not go to the Kremlin.

This guy had a hat on his head. And on the hat is our porridge. It lay almost in the middle of the hat, in the dimple, and a little along the edges, where the ribbon is, and a little behind the collar, and on the shoulders, and on the left trouser leg. As soon as he entered, he immediately began to mutter:

The main thing is that I’m going to take pictures... And suddenly such a story... Porridge... mm... semolina... Hot, by the way, through the hat and that... burns... How can I send my... .mm... photo when I'm covered in porridge?!

Then my mother looked at me, and her eyes became green as gooseberries, and this is a sure sign that my mother was terribly angry.

Excuse me, please,” she said quietly, “let me clean you up, come here!”

And all three of them went out into the corridor.

And when my mother returned, I was afraid to even look at her. But I overcame myself, went up to her and said:

Yes, mom, you said it right yesterday. The secret always becomes clear!

Mom looked into my eyes. She looked for a long time and then asked:

Have you remembered this for the rest of your life? And I answered.

Reflection of vanished years,

Relief from the yoke of life,

Eternal truths unfading light -

Tireless searching is the guarantee,

The joy of every new shift,

Indication of future roads -

This is a book. Long live the book!

A bright source of pure joys,

Securing a happy moment

Best friend if you're lonely -

This is a book. Long live the book!

Having emptied the pot, Vanya wiped it dry with a crust. He wiped the spoon with the same crust, ate the crust, stood up, bowed sedately to the giants and said, lowering his eyelashes:

Very grateful. I'm very pleased with you.

Maybe you want more?

No, I'm full.

Otherwise, we can put another pot for you,” Gorbunov said, winking, not without boasting. - This means nothing to us. Eh, shepherd boy?

“He doesn’t bother me anymore,” Vanya said shyly, and his blue eyes suddenly flashed a quick, mischievous glance from under his eyelashes.

If you don't want it, whatever you want. Your will. We have this rule: we don’t force anyone,” said Bidenko, known for his fairness.

But the vain Gorbunov, who loved for all people to admire the life of the scouts, said:

Well, Vanya, how did you like our grub?

“Good grub,” said the boy, putting a spoon in the pot, handle down, and collecting bread crumbs from the Suvorov Onslaught newspaper, spread out instead of a tablecloth.

Right, good? - Gorbunov perked up. - You, brother, won’t find such food from anyone in the division. Famous grub. You, brother, are the main thing, stick with us, the scouts. You will never be lost with us. Will you stick with us?

“I will,” the boy said cheerfully.

That's right, and you won't get lost. We'll wash you off in the bathhouse. We'll cut your hair. We'll arrange some uniforms so that you have the proper military appearance.

And, uncle, will you take me on a reconnaissance mission?

We'll take you on reconnaissance missions. Let's make you a famous intelligence officer.

I, uncle, am small. “I can climb everywhere,” Vanya said with joyful readiness. - I know every bush around here.

It's also expensive.

Will you teach me how to fire from a machine gun?

From what. The time will come - we will teach.

“I wish I could just shoot once, uncle,” said Vanya, looking greedily at the machine guns swinging on their belts from the incessant cannon fire.

You'll shoot. Don't be afraid. This won't happen. We will teach you all military science. Our first duty, of course, is to enroll you in all types of allowances.

How is it, uncle?

This, brother, is very simple. Sergeant Egorov will report about you to the lieutenant

Sedykh. Lieutenant Sedykh will report to the battery commander, Captain Enakiev, Captain Enakiev will order you to be included in the order. From this, it means that all types of allowance will go to you: clothing, welding, money. Do you understand?

Got it, uncle.

This is how we do it, scouts... Wait a minute! Where are you going?

Wash the dishes, uncle. Our mother always ordered us to wash the dishes after ourselves and then put them in the closet.

“She ordered correctly,” Gorbunov said sternly. - It’s the same in military service.

There are no porters in military service,” the fair Bidenko edifyingly noted.

However, just wait until you wash the dishes, we’ll drink tea now,” Gorbunov said smugly. - Do you respect drinking tea?

“I respect you,” said Vanya.

Well, you're doing the right thing. For us, as scouts, this is how it’s supposed to be: as soon as we eat, we immediately drink tea. It is forbidden! - Bidenko said. “We drink extra, of course,” he added indifferently. - We don't take this into account.

Soon a large copper kettle appeared in the tent - an object of special pride for the scouts, and a source of eternal envy for the rest of the batteries.

It turned out that the scouts really didn’t take sugar into account. The silent Bidenko untied his duffel bag and placed a huge handful of refined sugar on the Suvorov Onslaught. Before Vanya had time to blink an eye, Gorbunov poured two large breasts of sugar into his mug, however, noticing the expression of delight on the boy’s face, he splashed a third breast. Know us, the scouts!

Vanya grabbed the tin mug with both hands. He even closed his eyes with pleasure. He felt as if he were in an extraordinary, fairy-tale world. Everything around was fabulous. And this tent, as if illuminated by the sun in the middle of a cloudy day, and the roar of a close battle, and the kind giants throwing handfuls of refined sugar, and the mysterious “all types of allowances” promised to him - clothing, food, money - and even the words “stewed pork” printed in large black letters on the mug.

Like? - asked Gorbunov, proudly admiring the pleasure with which the boy sipped the tea with carefully stretched lips.

Vanya couldn’t even answer this question intelligently. His lips were busy fighting the tea, hot as fire. His heart was full of wild joy that he would stay with the scouts, with these wonderful people who promised to give him a haircut, give him uniform, and teach him how to fire a machine gun.

All the words were mixed up in his head. He just nodded his head gratefully, raised his eyebrows high and rolled his eyes, thereby expressing the highest degree of pleasure and gratitude.

(In Kataev “Son of the Regiment”)

If you think that I study well, you are mistaken. I study no matter. For some reason, everyone thinks that I am capable, but lazy. I don't know if I'm capable or not. But only I know for sure that I am not lazy. I spend three hours working on problems.

For example, now I’m sitting and trying with all my might to solve a problem. But she doesn’t dare. I tell my mom:

Mom, I can’t do the problem.

Don’t be lazy, says mom. - Think carefully, and everything will work out. Just think carefully!

She leaves on business. And I take my head with both hands and tell her:

Think, head. Think carefully... “Two pedestrians went from point A to point B...” Head, why don’t you think? Well, head, well, think, please! Well what is it worth to you!

A cloud floats outside the window. It is as light as feathers. There it stopped. No, it floats on.

Head, what are you thinking about?! Aren `t you ashamed!!! “Two pedestrians went from point A to point B...” Lyuska probably left too. She's already walking. If she had approached me first, I would, of course, forgive her. But will she really fit, such a mischief?!

“...From point A to point B...” No, she won’t do. On the contrary, when I go out into the yard, she will take Lena’s arm and whisper to her. Then she will say: “Len, come to me, I have something.” They will leave, and then sit on the windowsill and laugh and nibble on seeds.

“...Two pedestrians left point A to point B...” And what will I do?.. And then I’ll call Kolya, Petka and Pavlik to play lapta. What will she do? Yeah, she'll play the Three Fat Men record. Yes, so loud that Kolya, Petka and Pavlik will hear and run to ask her to let them listen. They've listened to it a hundred times, but it's not enough for them! And then Lyuska will close the window, and they will all listen to the record there.

“...From point A to point... to point...” And then I’ll take it and fire something right at her window. Glass - ding! - and will fly apart. Let him know.

So. I'm already tired of thinking. Think, don’t think, the task will not work. Just an awfully difficult task! I'll take a walk a little and start thinking again.

I closed the book and looked out the window. Lyuska was walking alone in the yard. She jumped into hopscotch. I went out into the yard and sat down on a bench. Lyuska didn’t even look at me.

Earring! Vitka! - Lyuska immediately screamed. - Let's go play lapta!

The Karmanov brothers looked out the window.

“We have a throat,” both brothers said hoarsely. - They won't let us in.

Lena! - Lyuska screamed. - Linen! Come out!

Instead of Lena, her grandmother looked out and shook her finger at Lyuska.

Pavlik! - Lyuska screamed.

No one appeared at the window.

Whoops! - Lyuska pressed herself.

Girl, why are you yelling?! - Someone's head poked out of the window. - A sick person is not allowed to rest! There is no peace for you! - And his head stuck back into the window.

Lyuska looked at me furtively and blushed like a lobster. She tugged at her pigtail. Then she took the thread off her sleeve. Then she looked at the tree and said:

Lucy, let's play hopscotch.

Come on, I said.

We jumped into hopscotch and I went home to solve my problem.

As soon as I sat down at the table, my mother came:

Well, how's the problem?

Does not work.

But you’ve been sitting over it for two hours already! This is just terrible! They give the children some puzzles!.. Well, show me your problem! Maybe I can do it? After all, I graduated from college. So. “Two pedestrians went from point A to point B...” Wait, wait, this problem is somehow familiar to me! Listen, you and your dad decided it last time! I remember perfectly!

How? - I was surprised. - Really? Oh, really, this is the forty-fifth problem, and we were given the forty-sixth.

At this point my mother became terribly angry.

It's outrageous! - Mom said. - This is unheard of! This mess! Where is your head?! What is she thinking about?!

(Irina Pivovarova “What is my head thinking about”)

Irina Pivovarova. Spring rain

I didn't want to study lessons yesterday. It was so sunny outside! Such a warm yellow sun! Such branches were swaying outside the window!.. I wanted to stretch out my hand and touch every sticky green leaf. Oh, how your hands will smell! And your fingers will stick together - you won’t be able to separate them from each other... No, I didn’t want to learn my lessons.

I went outside. The sky above me was fast. Clouds were hurrying along it somewhere, and sparrows were chirping terribly loudly in the trees, and a big fluffy cat was warming itself on a bench, and it was so good that it was spring!

I walked in the yard until the evening, and in the evening mom and dad went to the theater, and I, without having done my homework, went to bed.

The morning was dark, so dark that I didn’t want to get up at all. It's always like this. If it's sunny, I jump up immediately. I get dressed quickly. And the coffee is delicious, and mom doesn’t grumble, and dad jokes. And when the morning is like today, I can barely get dressed, my mother urges me on and gets angry. And when I have breakfast, dad makes comments to me that I’m sitting crookedly at the table.

On the way to school, I remembered that I had not done a single lesson, and this made me feel even worse. Without looking at Lyuska, I sat down at my desk and took out my textbooks.

Vera Evstigneevna entered. The lesson has begun. They'll call me now.

Sinitsyna, to the blackboard!

I shuddered. Why should I go to the board?

“I didn’t learn,” I said.

Vera Evstigneevna was surprised and gave me a bad mark.

Why do I have such a bad life in the world?! I'd rather take it and die. Then Vera Evstigneevna will regret that she gave me a bad mark. And mom and dad will cry and tell everyone:

“Oh, why did we go to the theater ourselves, and leave her all alone!”

Suddenly they pushed me in the back. I turned around. A note was thrust into my hands. I unfolded the long narrow paper ribbon and read:

“Lucy!

Don't despair!!!

A deuce is nothing!!!

You will correct the deuce!

I will help you! Let's be friends with you! Only this is a secret! Not a word to anyone!!!

Yalo-kvo-kyl.”

It was as if something warm was poured into me immediately. I was so happy that I even laughed. Lyuska looked at me, then at the note and proudly turned away.

Did someone really write this to me? Or maybe this note is not for me? Maybe she is Lyuska? But on back side stood: LUSYA SINITSYNA.

What a wonderful note! I have never received such wonderful notes in my life! Well, of course, a deuce is nothing! What are you talking about?! I'll just fix the two!

I re-read it twenty times:

“Let’s be friends with you...”

Well, of course! Of course, let's be friends! Let's be friends with you!! Please! I am very happy! I really love it when people want to be friends with me!..

But who writes this? Some kind of YALO-KVO-KYL. Confused word. I wonder what it means? And why does this YALO-KVO-KYL want to be friends with me?.. Maybe I’m beautiful after all?

I looked at the desk. There was nothing beautiful.

He probably wanted to be friends with me because I’m good. So, am I bad, or what? Of course it's good! After all, no one wants to be friends with a bad person!

To celebrate, I nudged Lyuska with my elbow.

Lucy, but one person wants to be friends with me!

Who? - Lyuska asked immediately.

I don't know who. The writing here is somehow unclear.

Show me, I'll figure it out.

Honestly, won't you tell anyone?

Honestly!

Lyuska read the note and pursed her lips:

Some fool wrote it! I couldn't say my real name.

Or maybe he's shy?

I looked around the whole class. Who could have written the note? Well, who?.. It would be nice, Kolya Lykov! He is the smartest in our class. Everyone wants to be his friend. But I have so many C’s! No, he probably won't.

Or maybe Yurka Seliverstov wrote this?.. No, he and I are already friends. He would send me a note out of the blue!

During recess I went out into the corridor. I stood by the window and began to wait. It would be nice if this YALO-KVO-KYL made friends with me right now!

Pavlik Ivanov came out of the class and immediately walked towards me.

So, that means Pavlik wrote this? Only this was not enough!

Pavlik ran up to me and said:

Sinitsyna, give me ten kopecks.

I gave him ten kopecks so that he would get rid of it as soon as possible. Pavlik immediately ran to the buffet, and I stayed by the window. But no one else came.

Suddenly Burakov began walking past me. It seemed to me that he was looking at me strangely. He stopped nearby and began to look out the window. So, that means Burakov wrote the note?! Then I'd better leave right away. I can't stand this Burakov!

The weather is terrible,” Burakov said.

I didn't have time to leave.

“Yes, the weather is bad,” I said.

The weather couldn’t be worse,” Burakov said.

Terrible weather,” I said.

Then Burakov took an apple out of his pocket and bit off half with a crunch.

Burakov, let me take a bite,” I couldn’t resist.

“But it’s bitter,” Burakov said and walked down the corridor.

No, he didn't write the note. And thank God! You won’t find another greedy person like him in the whole world!

I looked after him contemptuously and went to class. I walked in and was stunned. On the board it was written in huge letters:

SECRET!!! YALO-KVO-KYL + SINITSYNA = LOVE!!! NOT A WORD TO ANYONE!

Lyuska was whispering with the girls in the corner. When I walked in, they all stared at me and started giggling.

I grabbed a rag and rushed to wipe the board.

Then Pavlik Ivanov jumped up to me and whispered in my ear:

I wrote this note to you.

You're lying, not you!

Then Pavlik laughed like a fool and yelled at the whole class:

Oh, it's hilarious! Why be friends with you?! All covered in freckles, like a cuttlefish! Stupid tit!

And then, before I had time to look back, Yurka Seliverstov jumped up to him and hit this idiot right in the head with a wet rag. Pavlik howled:

Ah well! I'll tell everyone! I’ll tell everyone, everyone, everyone about her, how she receives notes! And I’ll tell everyone about you! It was you who sent her the note! - And he ran out of the class with a stupid cry: - Yalo-kvo-kyl! Yalo-quo-kyl!

The lessons are over. Nobody ever approached me. Everyone quickly collected their textbooks, and the classroom was empty. Kolya Lykov and I were left alone. Kolya still couldn’t tie his shoelace.

The door creaked. Yurka Seliverstov stuck his head into the classroom, looked at me, then at Kolya and, without saying anything, left.

But what if? What if Kolya wrote this after all? Is it really Kolya?! What happiness if Kolya! My throat immediately went dry.

If, please tell me,” I barely squeezed out, “it’s not you, by chance...

I didn’t finish because I suddenly saw Kolya’s ears and neck turn red.

Oh you! - Kolya said without looking at me. - I thought you... And you...

Kolya! - I screamed. - Well, I...

You’re a chatterbox, that’s who,” said Kolya. -Your tongue is like a broom. And I don't want to be friends with you anymore. What else was missing!

Kolya finally managed to pull the lace, stood up and left the classroom. And I sat down in my place.

I'm not going anywhere. It's raining so badly outside the window. And my fate is so bad, so bad that it can’t get any worse! I'll sit here until nightfall. And I will sit at night. Alone in a dark classroom, alone in the whole dark school. That's what I need.

Aunt Nyura came in with a bucket.

“Go home, honey,” said Aunt Nyura. - At home, my mother was tired of waiting.

No one was waiting for me at home, Aunt Nyura,” I said and trudged out of class.

My bad fate! Lyuska is no longer my friend. Vera Evstigneevna gave me a bad grade. Kolya Lykov... I didn’t even want to remember about Kolya Lykov.

I slowly put on my coat in the locker room and, barely dragging my feet, went out into the street...

It was wonderful, the best spring rain in the world!!!

Funny, wet passers-by were running down the street with their collars raised!!!

And on the porch, right in the rain, stood Kolya Lykov.

Let’s go,” he said.

And off we went.

(Irina Pivovarova “Spring Rain”)

The front was far from the village of Nechaev. The Nechaev collective farmers did not hear the roar of guns, did not see how planes were fighting in the sky and how the glow of fires blazed at night where the enemy passed through Russian soil. But from where the front was, refugees walked through Nechaevo. They dragged sleds with bundles, hunched over under the weight of bags and sacks. The children walked and got stuck in the snow, clinging to their mothers' dresses. Homeless people stopped, warmed themselves in the huts and moved on.
One day at dusk, when the shadow of the old birch tree stretched all the way to the granary, they knocked on the Shalikhins’ hut.
The reddish, nimble girl Taiska rushed to the side window, buried her nose in the thawed area, and both her pigtails cheerfully lifted up.
- Two aunties! - she screamed. – One is young, wearing a scarf! And the other one is a very old lady, with a stick! And yet... look - a girl!
Pear, Taiska’s eldest sister, put aside the stocking she was knitting and also went to the window.
- She really is a girl. In a blue hood...
“Then go open it,” said the mother. – What are you waiting for?
Pear pushed Taiska:
- Go, what are you doing! Should all elders?
Taiska ran to open the door. People entered, and the hut smelled of snow and frost.
While the mother was talking to the women, while she was asking where they were from, where they were going, where the Germans were and where the front was, Grusha and Taiska looked at the girl.
- Look, in boots!
- And the stocking is torn!
“Look, she’s clutching her bag so tightly, she can’t even loosen her fingers.” What does she have there?
- Just ask.
- Ask yourself.
At this time, Romanok appeared from the street. The frost cut his cheeks. Red as a tomato, he stopped in front of the strange girl and stared at her. I even forgot to wash my feet.
And the girl in the blue hood sat motionless on the edge of the bench.
Right hand she clutched to her chest a yellow handbag hanging over her shoulder. She silently looked somewhere at the wall and seemed to see and hear nothing.
The mother poured hot stew for the refugees and cut off a piece of bread.
- Oh, and wretches! – she sighed. – It’s not easy for us, and the child is struggling... Is this your daughter?
“No,” the woman answered, “a stranger.”
“They lived on the same street,” added the old woman.
The mother was surprised:
- Alien? Where are your relatives, girl?
The girl looked at her gloomily and did not answer.
“She has no one,” the woman whispered, “the whole family died: her father is at the front, and her mother and brother are here.”

Killed...
The mother looked at the girl and could not come to her senses.
She looked at her light coat, which the wind was probably blowing through, at her torn stockings, at her thin neck, plaintively white from under the blue hood...
Killed. Everyone is killed! But the girl is alive. And she is alone in the whole world!
The mother approached the girl.
-What is your name, daughter? – she asked tenderly.
“Valya,” the girl answered indifferently.
“Valya... Valentina...” the mother repeated thoughtfully. - Valentine...
Seeing that the women took up their knapsacks, she stopped them:
- Stay overnight today. It’s already late outside, and the drifting snow has begun – look how it’s sweeping away! And you'll leave in the morning.
The women remained. Mother made beds for tired people. She made a bed for the girl on a warm couch - let her warm up thoroughly. The girl undressed, took off her blue hood, poked her head into the pillow, and sleep immediately overcame her. So, when the grandfather came home in the evening, his usual place on the couch was occupied, and that night he had to lie down on the chest.
After dinner everyone calmed down very quickly. Only the mother tossed and turned on her bed and could not sleep.
At night she got up, lit a small blue lamp and quietly walked over to the bed. The weak light of the lamp illuminated the girl’s gentle, slightly flushed face, large fluffy eyelashes, dark hair with a chestnut tint, scattered across the colorful pillow.
- You poor orphan! – the mother sighed. “You just opened your eyes to the light, and how much grief has fallen upon you!” For such and such a small one!..
The mother stood near the girl for a long time and kept thinking about something. I took her boots from the floor and looked at them - they were thin and wet. Tomorrow this little girl will put them on and go somewhere again... And where?
Early, early, when it was just dawning in the windows, the mother got up and lit the stove. Grandfather got up too: he didn’t like to lie down for a long time. It was quiet in the hut, only sleepy breathing could be heard and Romanok snored on the stove. In this silence, by the light of a small lamp, the mother spoke quietly with the grandfather.
“Let's take the girl, father,” she said. - I really feel sorry for her!
The grandfather put aside the felt boots he was mending, raised his head and looked thoughtfully at his mother.
- Take the girl?.. Will it be okay? - he answered. “We are from the countryside, and she is from the city.”
– Does it really matter, father? There are people in the city and people in the village. After all, she is an orphan! Our Taiska will have a girlfriend. Next winter they will go to school together...
The grandfather came up and looked at the girl:
- Well... Look. You know better. Let's at least take it. Just be careful not to cry with her later!
- Eh!.. Maybe I won’t pay.
Soon the refugees also got up and began to get ready to go. But when they wanted to wake up the girl, the mother stopped them:
- Wait, no need to wake me up. Leave your Valentine with me! If you find any relatives, tell me: he lives in Nechaev, with Daria Shalikhina. And I had three guys - well, there will be four. Maybe we'll live!
The women thanked the hostess and left. But the girl remained.
“Here I have another daughter,” said Daria Shalikhina thoughtfully, “daughter Valentinka... Well, we’ll live.”
This is how a new person appeared in the village of Nechaevo.

(Lyubov Voronkova “Girl from the City”)

Not remembering how she left the house, Assol fled to the sea, caught up in an irresistible

by the wind of the event; at the first corner she stopped almost exhausted; her legs were giving way,

breathing was interrupted and extinguished, consciousness was hanging on by a thread. Beside myself with fear of losing

will, she stamped her foot and recovered. At times the roof or the fence hid her from

Scarlet Sails; then, fearing that they had disappeared like a simple ghost, she hurried

pass the painful obstacle and, seeing the ship again, stopped with relief

take a breath.

Meanwhile, in Kaperna there was such confusion, such excitement, such

general unrest, which will not yield to the effect of famous earthquakes. Never before

the large ship did not approach this shore; the ship had the same sails, the name

which sounded like mockery; now they were clearly and irrefutably blazing with

the innocence of a fact that refutes all the laws of existence and common sense. Men,

women and children rushed to the shore in a hurry, who was wearing what; residents echoed

courtyard to courtyard, they jumped on each other, screamed and fell; soon formed near the water

a crowd, and Assol quickly ran into the crowd.

While she was away, her name flew among the people with nervous and gloomy anxiety, with

with evil fear. The men did most of the talking; muffled, snake hissing

the stunned women sobbed, but if one had already begun to crack - poison

got into my head. As soon as Assol appeared, everyone fell silent, everyone moved away from him in fear.

her, and she was left alone in the middle of the emptiness of the sultry sand, confused, ashamed, happy, with a face no less scarlet than her miracle, helplessly stretching out her hands to the tall

A boat full of tanned oarsmen separated from him; among them stood one whom she thought

It seemed now, she knew, she vaguely remembered from childhood. He looked at her with a smile,

which warmed and hurried. But thousands of last funny fears overcame Assol;

mortally afraid of everything - mistakes, misunderstandings, mysterious and harmful interference -

she ran waist-deep into the warm swaying waves, shouting: “I’m here, I’m here! It's me!"

Then Zimmer waved his bow - and the same melody rang through the nerves of the crowd, but on

this time in full, triumphant chorus. From the excitement, the movement of clouds and waves, the shine

water and distance, the girl could almost no longer distinguish what was moving: she, the ship, or

the boat - everything was moving, spinning and falling.

But the oar splashed sharply near her; she raised her head. Gray bent over, her hands

grabbed his belt. Assol closed her eyes; then, quickly opening his eyes, boldly

smiled at his shining face and, out of breath, said:

Absolutely like that.

And you too, my child! - Gray said, taking the wet jewel out of the water. -

Here I come. Do you recognize me?

She nodded, holding onto his belt, with a new soul and tremulously closed eyes.

Happiness sat inside her like a fluffy kitten. When Assol decided to open her eyes,

the rocking of the boat, the shine of the waves, the approaching, powerfully tossing board of the "Secret" -

everything was a dream, where the light and water swayed, swirling, like the play of sunbeams on

beaming wall. Not remembering how, she climbed the ladder to strong hands Gray.

The deck, covered and hung with carpets, in the scarlet splashes of the sails, was like a heavenly garden.

And soon Assol saw that she was standing in the cabin - in a room that could no longer be better

Then from above, shaking and burying the heart in her triumphant cry, she rushed again

great music. Again Assol closed her eyes, afraid that all this would disappear if she

look. Gray took her hands, and, already knowing where it was safe to go, she hid

a face wet with tears on the chest of a friend who came so magically. Carefully, but with laughter,

himself shocked and surprised that an inexpressible, inaccessible to anyone, had occurred

precious minute, Gray lifted his chin up, this dream that had long, long ago

The girl's face and eyes finally opened clearly. They had everything best man.

Will you take my Longren to us? - she said.

Yes. - And he kissed her so hard following his iron “yes” that she

laughed.

(A. Green. “Scarlet Sails”)

By the end school year I asked my father to buy me a two-wheeler, a battery-powered submachine gun, a battery-powered airplane, a flying helicopter and a table hockey game.

I really want to have these things! - I told my father. “They constantly spin in my head like a carousel, and it makes my head so dizzy that it’s hard to stay on my feet.”

Hold on, - said the father, - don’t fall, and write all these things on a piece of paper for me so that I don’t forget.

But why write, they are already firmly in my head.

Write,” said the father, “it doesn’t cost you anything.”

“In general, it’s worth nothing,” I said, “just extra hassle.” - And I wrote in capital letters on the entire sheet:

VILISAPET

PISTAL GUN

PLANE

VIRTALET

HAKEI

Then I thought about it and decided to write “ice cream”, went to the window, looked at the sign opposite and added:

ICE CREAM

The father read it and said:

I'll buy you some ice cream for now, and we'll wait for the rest.

I thought he had no time now, and I asked:

Until what time?

Until better times.

Until what?

Until the next end of the school year.

Why?

Yes, because the letters in your head are spinning like a carousel, this makes you dizzy, and the words are not on their feet.

It's as if words have legs!

And they’ve bought me ice cream a hundred times already.

(Victor Galyavkin “Carousel in the head”)

Rose.

The last days of August... Autumn has already arrived.
The sun was setting. A sudden gusty downpour, without thunder and without lightning, had just rushed over our wide plain.
The garden in front of the house was burning and smoking, all flooded with the fire of dawn and the deluge of rain.
She was sitting at the table in the living room and looking into the garden through the half-open door with persistent thoughtfulness.
I knew what was happening in her soul then; I knew that after a short, albeit painful, struggle, at that very moment she surrendered to a feeling with which she could no longer cope.
Suddenly she got up, quickly went out into the garden and disappeared.
An hour has struck... another has struck; she didn't return.
Then I got up and, leaving the house, went along the alley, along which - I had no doubt - she also went.
Everything went dark around; the night has already come. But on the damp sand of the path, shining brightly even through the diffuse darkness, a roundish object could be seen.
I bent down... It was a young, slightly blossoming rose. Two hours ago I saw this very rose on her chest.
I carefully picked up the flower that had fallen into the dirt and, returning to the living room, placed it on the table in front of her chair.
So she finally returned - and, walking across the room with light steps, she sat down at the table.
Her face turned pale and came to life; the lowered, like diminished eyes ran around quickly, with cheerful embarrassment.
She saw a rose, grabbed it, looked at its crumpled, stained petals, looked at me - and her eyes, suddenly stopping, shone with tears.
-What are you crying about? - I asked.
- Yes, about this rose. Look what happened to her.
Here I decided to show my thoughtfulness.
“Your tears will wash away this dirt,” I said with a significant expression.
“Tears don’t wash, tears burn,” she answered and, turning to the fireplace, threw a flower into the dying flame.
“Fire will burn even better than tears,” she exclaimed, not without boldness, “and the crossed eyes, still sparkling with tears, laughed boldly and happily.
I realized that she too had been burned. (I.S. Turgenev “ROSE”)

I SEE YOU PEOPLE!

- Hello, Bezhana! Yes, it’s me, Sosoya... I haven’t been with you for a long time, my Bezhana! Excuse me!.. Now I’ll put everything in order here: I’ll clear the grass, straighten the cross, repaint the bench... Look, the rose has already faded... Yes, quite a bit of time has passed... And how much news I have for you, Bezhana! I don't know where to start! Wait a little, I’ll pull out this weed and tell you everything in order...

Well, my dear Bezhana: the war is over! Our village is unrecognizable now! The guys have returned from the front, Bezhana! Gerasim's son returned, Nina's son returned, Minin Evgeniy returned, and Nodar Tadpole's father returned, and Otia's father. True, he is missing one leg, but what does that matter? Just think, a leg!.. But our Kukuri, Lukain Kukuri, did not return. Mashiko's son Malkhaz also did not return... Many did not return, Bezhana, and yet we have a holiday in the village! Salt and corn appeared... After you, ten weddings took place, and at each I was among the guests of honor and drank great! Do you remember Giorgi Tsertsvadze? Yes, yes, the father of eleven children! So, George also returned, and his wife Taliko gave birth to a twelfth boy, Shukria. That was some fun, Bejana! Taliko was in a tree picking plums when she went into labor! Do you hear, Bejana? I almost died on a tree! I still managed to get downstairs! The child was named Shukriya, but I call him Slivovich. Great, isn't it, Bejana? Slivovich! What's worse than Georgievich? In total, after you, we had thirteen children... Yes, one more news, Bezhana, I know it will make you happy. Khatia's father took her to Batumi. She will have surgery and she will see! After? Then... You know, Bezhana, how much I love Khatia? So I'll marry her! Certainly! I'll celebrate a wedding, a big wedding! And we will have children!.. What? What if she doesn’t see the light? Yes, my aunt also asks me about this... I’m getting married anyway, Bezhana! She can’t live without me... And I can’t live without Khatia... Didn’t you love some Minadora? So I love my Khatia... And my aunt loves... him... Of course she loves, otherwise she wouldn’t ask the postman every day if there is a letter for her... She’s waiting for him! You know who... But you also know that he will not return to her... And I’m waiting for my Khatia. It makes no difference to me whether she returns as sighted or blind. What if she doesn't like me? What do you think, Bejana? True, my aunt says that I have matured, become prettier, that it is difficult to even recognize me, but... who the hell is not joking!.. However, no, it cannot be that Khatia doesn’t like me! She knows what I am like, she sees me, she herself has spoken about this more than once... I graduated from ten classes, Bezhana! I'm thinking of going to college. I’ll become a doctor, and if Khatia doesn’t get help in Batumi now, I’ll cure her myself. Right, Bejana?

– Has our Sosoya gone completely crazy? Who are you talking to?

- Ah, hello, Uncle Gerasim!

- Hello! What are you doing here?

- So, I came to look at Bezhana’s grave...

- Go to the office... Vissarion and Khatia have returned... - Gerasim lightly patted me on the cheek.

My breath was taken away.

- So how is it?!

“Run, run, son, meet me...” I didn’t let Gerasim finish, I took off from my place and rushed down the slope.

Faster, Sosoya, faster!.. So far, shorten the road along this beam! Jump!.. Faster, Sosoya!.. I'm running like I've never run in my life!.. My ears are ringing, my heart is ready to jump out of my chest, my knees are giving way... Don't you dare stop, Sosoya!.. Run! If you jump over this ditch, it means everything is fine with Khatia... You jumped over!.. If you run to that tree without breathing, it means everything is fine with Khatia... So... A little more... Two more steps... You made it!.. If you count to fifty without taking a breath - that means everything is fine with Khatia... One, two, three... ten, eleven, twelve... Forty-five, forty-six... Oh, how difficult...

- Khatiya-ah!..

Gasping, I ran up to them and stopped. I couldn't say another word.

- Soso! – Khatia said quietly.

I looked at her. Khatia's face was as white as chalk. She looked with her huge, beautiful eyes somewhere into the distance, past me, and smiled.

- Uncle Vissarion!

Vissarion stood with his head bowed and was silent.

- Well, Uncle Vissarion? Vissarion did not answer.

- Khatia!

“The doctors said that it is not possible to have surgery yet. They told me to definitely come next spring...” Khatia said calmly.

My God, why didn't I count to fifty?! My throat tickled. I covered my face with my hands.

- How are you, Sosoya? Do you have some new?

I hugged Khatia and kissed her on the cheek. Uncle Vissarion took out a handkerchief, wiped his dry eyes, coughed and left.

- How are you, Sosoya? - Khatia repeated.

- Okay... Don't be afraid, Khatia... They'll have surgery in the spring, won't they? – I stroked Khatia’s face.

She narrowed her eyes and became so beautiful, such that the Mother of God herself would envy her...

- In the spring, Sosoya...

– Just don’t be afraid, Khatia!

– I’m not afraid, Sosoya!

- And if they cannot help you, I will do it, Khatia, I swear to you!

- I know, Sosoya!

– Even if not... So what? Do you see me?

- I see, Sosoya!

– What else do you need?

– Nothing more, Sosoya!

Where are you going, road, and where are you leading my village? Do you remember? One day in June you took away everything that was dear to me in the world. I asked you, dear, and you returned to me everything that you could return. I thank you, dear! Now it's our turn. You will take us, me and Khatia, and lead us to where your end should be. But we don't want you to end. Hand in hand we will walk with you to infinity. You will never again have to deliver news about us to our village in triangular letters and envelopes with printed addresses. We'll be back ourselves, dear! We will face the east, see the golden sun rise, and then Khatia will say to the whole world:

- People, it’s me, Khatia! I see you people!

(Nodar Dumbadze “I see you, people!..."

Near a big city, an old, sick man was walking along a wide road.

He staggered as he walked; his emaciated legs, tangling, dragging and stumbling, walked heavily and weakly, as if

strangers; his clothes hung in rags; his bare head fell onto his chest... He was exhausted.

He sat down on a roadside stone, leaned forward, leaned on his elbows, covered his face with both hands - and through his crooked fingers, tears dripped onto the dry, gray dust.

He recalled...

He remembered how he, too, had once been healthy and rich - and how he had spent his health, and distributed his wealth to others, friends and enemies... And now he does not have a piece of bread - and everyone has abandoned him, friends even before enemies... Should he really stoop to beg for alms? And he felt bitter and ashamed in his heart.

And the tears kept dripping and dripping, dappling the gray dust.

Suddenly he heard someone calling his name; he raised his tired head and saw a stranger in front of him.

The face is calm and important, but not stern; the eyes are not radiant, but light; the gaze is piercing, but not evil.

“You gave away all your wealth,” an even voice was heard... “But you don’t regret doing good?”

“I don’t regret it,” the old man answered with a sigh, “only now I’m dying.”

“And if there were no beggars in the world who extended their hand to you,” the stranger continued, “there would be no one for you to show your virtue over; could you not practice it?

The old man did not answer anything and became thoughtful.

“So don’t be proud now, poor man,” the stranger spoke again, “go, stretch out your hand, and give to others good people an opportunity to show in practice that they are kind.

The old man started, raised his eyes... but the stranger had already disappeared; and in the distance a passer-by appeared on the road.

The old man approached him and extended his hand. This passerby turned away with a stern expression and did not give anything.

But another followed him - and he gave the old man a small alms.

And the old man bought himself some bread with the given pennies - and the piece he asked for seemed sweet to him - and there was no shame in his heart, but on the contrary: a quiet joy dawned on him.

(I.S. Turgenev “Alms”)

Happy

Yes, I was happy once.
I long ago defined what happiness is, a very long time ago - at the age of six. And when it came to me, I didn’t recognize it right away. But I remembered what it should be like, and then I realized that I was happy.
* * *
I remember: I am six years old, my sister is four.
We ran for a long time after lunch along the long hall, caught up with each other, screamed and fell. Now we are tired and quiet.
We stand nearby, looking out the window at the muddy spring twilight street.
Spring twilight is always alarming and always sad.
And we are silent. We listen to the crystals of the candelabra tremble as carts pass along the street.
If we were big, we would think about people's anger, about insults, about our love that we insulted, and about the love that we insulted ourselves, and about the happiness that does not exist.
But we are children and we don't know anything. We just remain silent. We are terrified to turn around. It seems to us that the hall has already become completely dark and that this whole large, echoing house in which we live has darkened. Why is he so quiet now? Maybe everyone left it and forgot us, little girls, pressed against the window in a dark huge room?
(*61)Near my shoulder I see my sister’s frightened, round eye. She looks at me - should she cry or not?
And then I remember my impression of this day, so bright, so beautiful that I immediately forget both the dark house and the dull, dreary street.
- Lena! - I say loudly and cheerfully. - Lena! I saw a horse-drawn horse today!
I cannot tell her everything about the immensely joyful impression that the horse-drawn horse made on me.
The horses were white and ran quickly; the carriage itself was red or yellow, beautiful, there were a lot of people sitting in it, all strangers, so they could get to know each other and even play some quiet game. And behind on the step stood a conductor, all in gold - or maybe not all of it, but just a little, with buttons - and blew into a golden trumpet:
- Rram-rra-ra!
The sun itself rang in this pipe and flew out of it in golden-sounding splashes.
How can you tell it all? One can only say:
- Lena! I saw a horse-drawn horse!
And you don't need anything else. From my voice, from my face, she understood all the boundless beauty of this vision.
And can anyone really jump into this chariot of joy and rush to the sound of the sun trumpet?
- Rram-rra-ra!
No, not everyone. Fraulein says that you need to pay for it. That's why they don't take us there. We are locked in a boring, musty carriage with a rattling window, smelling of morocco and patchouli, and are not even allowed to press our nose to the glass.
But when we are big and rich, we will only ride horse-drawn horses. We will, we will, we will be happy!

(Taffy. “Happy”)

Petrushevskaya Lyudmila

Kitten of the Lord God

And the boys’ guardian angel rejoiced, standing behind his right shoulder, because everyone knows that the Lord himself equipped the kitten into the world, just as he equips all of us, his children. And if the white light receives another creature sent by God, then this white light continues to live.

So, the boy grabbed the kitten in his arms and began to stroke it and gently press it to himself. And behind his left elbow stood a demon, who was also very interested in the kitten and the many possibilities associated with this particular kitten.

The guardian angel became worried and began to draw magical pictures: here the cat is sleeping on the boy’s pillow, here he is playing with a piece of paper, here he is going for a walk like a dog at his feet... And the demon pushed the boy under his left elbow and suggested: it would be nice to tie a tin can to the kitten’s tail! It would be nice to throw him into a pond and watch, dying of laughter, as he tries to swim out! Those bulging eyes! And many others different offers The devil brought the demon into the hot head of the kicked out boy while he was walking home with a kitten in his arms.

The Guardian Angel cried that theft would not lead to good, that thieves throughout the entire earth were despised and put in cages like pigs, and that it was a shame for a person to take someone else’s property - but it was all in vain!

But the demon was already opening the garden gate with the words “he will see and not come out” and laughed at the angel.

And the grandmother, lying in bed, suddenly noticed a kitten that climbed into her window, jumped onto the bed and turned on its little motor, smearing itself on the grandmother’s frozen feet.

The grandmother was glad to see him; her own cat was poisoned, apparently, by rat poison at her neighbors' dump.

The kitten purred, rubbed its head against its grandmother’s legs, received a piece of black bread from her, ate it and immediately fell asleep.

And we have already said that the kitten was not an ordinary one, but he was the kitten of the Lord God, and the magic happened at that very moment, there was a knock on the window, and the old woman’s son with his wife and child, hung with backpacks and bags, entered the hut: Having received his mother's letter, which arrived very late, he did not answer, no longer hoping for mail, but demanded leave, grabbed his family and set off on a journey along the route bus - station - train - bus - bus - an hour's walk through two rivers, through the forest and the field, and finally arrived.

His wife, rolling up her sleeves, began to sort out bags of supplies, prepare dinner, he himself, taking a hammer, moved to repair the gate, their son kissed his grandmother on the nose, took the kitten in his arms and went into the garden through the raspberries, where he met a stranger, and here the thief’s guardian angel grabbed his head, and the demon retreated, chattering his tongue and smiling impudently, and the unfortunate thief behaved in the same way.

The owner boy carefully placed the kitten on an overturned bucket, and he hit the kidnapper in the neck, and he rushed faster than the wind to the gate, which the grandmother’s son had just begun to repair, blocking the entire space with his back.

The demon slinked through the fence, the angel covered himself with his sleeve and began to cry, but the kitten warmly stood up for the child, and the angel helped to invent that the boy had not climbed into the raspberries, but after his kitten, which supposedly had run away. Or maybe the demon made it up, standing behind the fence and wagging his tongue, the boy did not understand.

In short, the boy was released, but the adult did not give him a kitten and told him to come with his parents.

As for the grandmother, fate still left her to live: in the evening she got up to meet the cattle, and the next morning she made jam, worrying that they would eat everything and there would be nothing to give her son to the city, and at noon she sheared a sheep and a ram in order to have time to knit mittens for the whole family and socks.

This is where our life is needed - this is how we live.

And the boy, left without a kitten and without raspberries, walked around gloomy, but that same evening he received a bowl of strawberries with milk from his grandmother for an unknown reason, and his mother read him a bedtime story, and his guardian angel was immensely happy and settled down in the sleeper’s head , like all six-year-old children.

Kitten of the Lord God

One grandmother in the village got sick, got bored and got ready for the next world.

Her son still did not come, did not answer the letter, so the grandmother prepared to die, released the cattle into the herd, put a can of clean water by the bed, put a piece of bread under the pillow, placed a filthy bucket closer and lay down to read prayers, and the guardian angel stood by in her heads.

And a boy and his mother came to this village.

Everything was fine with them, their own grandmother functioned, kept a vegetable garden, goats and chickens, but this grandmother did not particularly welcome it when her grandson picked berries and cucumbers in the garden: all this was ripe and ripe for supplies for the winter, for jam and pickles to the same grandson, and if necessary, the grandmother herself will give it.

This expelled grandson was walking around the village and noticed a kitten, small, big-headed and pot-bellied, gray and fluffy.

The kitten strayed towards the child and began to rub against his sandals, inspiring sweet dreams in the boy: how he would be able to feed the kitten, sleep with him, and play.

And the boys’ guardian angel rejoiced, standing behind his right shoulder, because everyone knows that the Lord himself equipped the kitten into the world, just as he equips all of us, his children.

And if the white light receives another creature sent by God, then this white light continues to live.

And every living creation is a test for those who have already settled in: will they accept the new one or not.

So, the boy grabbed the kitten in his arms and began to stroke it and gently press it to himself.

And behind his left elbow stood a demon, who was also very interested in the kitten and the many possibilities associated with this particular kitten.

The guardian angel became worried and began to draw magical pictures: here the cat is sleeping on the boy’s pillow, here he is playing with a piece of paper, here he is going for a walk like a dog at his feet...

And the demon pushed the boy under his left elbow and suggested: it would be nice to tie a tin can to the kitten’s tail! It would be nice to throw him into a pond and watch, dying of laughter, as he tries to swim out! Those bulging eyes!

And many other different proposals were introduced by the demon into the hot head of the kicked out boy while he was walking home with a kitten in his arms.

And at home, the grandmother immediately scolded him, why was he carrying the flea into the kitchen, there was a cat sitting in the hut, and the boy objected that he would take it with him to the city, but then the mother entered into a conversation, and it was all over, the kitten was ordered take it away from where you got it and throw it over the fence there.

The boy walked with the kitten and threw it over all the fences, and the kitten cheerfully jumped out to meet him after a few steps and again jumped and played with him.

So the boy reached the fence of that grandmother, who was about to die with a supply of water, and again the kitten was abandoned, but then it immediately disappeared.

And again the demon pushed the boy by the elbow and pointed him to someone else’s good garden, where ripe raspberries and black currants hung, where gooseberries were golden.

The demon reminded the boy that the grandmother here was sick, the whole village knew about it, the grandmother was already bad, and the demon told the boy that no one would stop him from eating raspberries and cucumbers.

The guardian angel began to persuade the boy not to do this, but the raspberries turned so red in the rays of the setting sun!

The Guardian Angel cried that theft would not lead to good, that thieves throughout the entire earth were despised and put in cages like pigs, and that it was a shame for a person to take someone else’s property - but it was all in vain!

Then the guardian angel finally began to make the boy afraid that the grandmother would see from the window.

But the demon was already opening the garden gate with the words “he will see and not come out” and laughed at the angel.

The grandmother was plump, broad, with a soft, melodious voice. “I filled the whole apartment with myself!..” Borkin’s father grumbled. And his mother timidly objected to him: “Old man... Where can she go?” “I’ve lived in the world...” sighed the father. “She belongs in a nursing home—that’s where she belongs!”

Everyone in the house, not excluding Borka, looked at the grandmother as if she were a completely unnecessary person.

The grandmother was sleeping on the chest. All night she tossed and turned heavily, and in the morning she got up before everyone else and rattled dishes in the kitchen. Then she woke up her son-in-law and daughter: “The samovar is ripe. Get up! Have a hot drink on the way..."

She approached Borka: “Get up, my father, it’s time to go to school!” "For what?" – Borka asked in a sleepy voice. “Why go to school? The dark man is deaf and dumb - that’s why!”

Borka hid his head under the blanket: “Go, grandma...”

In the hallway, father shuffled with a broom. “Where did you put your galoshes, mother? Every time you poke into all corners because of them!”

The grandmother hurried to his aid. “Yes, here they are, Petrusha, in plain sight. Yesterday they were very dirty, I washed them and put them down.”

Borka would come home from school, throw his coat and hat into his grandmother’s arms, throw his bag of books on the table and shout: “Grandma, eat!”

The grandmother hid her knitting, hurriedly set the table and, crossing her arms on her stomach, watched Borka eat. During these hours, Borka somehow involuntarily felt his grandmother as one of his close friends. He willingly told her about his lessons and comrades. The grandmother listened to him lovingly, with great attention, saying: “Everything is fine, Boryushka: both bad and good are good. From bad man He becomes stronger, his soul blooms from good things.”

Having eaten, Borka pushed the plate away from him: “ Delicious jelly Today! Have you eaten, grandma? “I ate, I ate,” the grandmother nodded her head. “Don’t worry about me, Boryushka, thank you, I’m well-fed and healthy.”

A friend came to Borka. The comrade said: “Hello, grandma!” Borka cheerfully nudged him with his elbow: “Let's go, let's go!” You don't have to say hello to her. She’s our old lady.” The grandmother pulled down her jacket, straightened her scarf and quietly moved her lips: “To offend - to hit, to caress - you have to look for words.”

And in the next room, a friend said to Borka: “And they always say hello to our grandmother. Both our own and others. She is our main one." “How is this the main one?” – Borka became interested. “Well, the old one... raised everyone. She cannot be offended. What's wrong with yours? Look, father will be angry for this.” “It won’t warm up! – Borka frowned. “He doesn’t greet her himself...”

After this conversation, Borka often asked his grandmother out of nowhere: “Are we offending you?” And he told his parents: “Our grandmother is the best of all, but lives the worst of all - no one cares about her.” The mother was surprised, and the father was angry: “Who taught your parents to condemn you? Look at me - I’m still small!”

The grandmother, smiling softly, shook her head: “You fools should be happy. Your son is growing up for you! I have outlived my time in the world, and your old age is ahead. What you kill, you won’t get back.”

* * *

Borka was generally interested in grandma’s face. There were different wrinkles on this face: deep, small, thin, like threads, and wide, dug out over the years. “Why are you so painted? Very old? - he asked. Grandma was thinking. “You can read a person’s life by its wrinkles, my dear, as if from a book. Grief and need are at play here. She buried her children, cried, and wrinkles appeared on her face. She endured the need, she struggled, and again there were wrinkles. My husband was killed in the war - there were many tears, but many wrinkles remained. A lot of rain digs holes in the ground.”

I listened to Borka and looked in the mirror with fear: he had never cried enough in his life - would his whole face be covered with such threads? “Go away, grandma! - he grumbled. “You always say stupid things...”

* * *

Recently, the grandmother suddenly hunched over, her back became round, she walked more quietly and kept sitting down. “It grows into the ground,” my father joked. “Don’t laugh at the old man,” the mother was offended. And she said to the grandmother in the kitchen: “What is it, mom, moving around the room like a turtle? Send you for something and you won’t come back.”

My grandmother died before the May holiday. She died alone, sitting in a chair with knitting in her hands: an unfinished sock lay on her knees, a ball of thread on the floor. Apparently she was waiting for Borka. The finished device stood on the table.

The next day the grandmother was buried.

Returning from the yard, Borka found his mother sitting in front of an open chest. All sorts of junk was piled on the floor. There was a smell of stale things. The mother took out the crumpled red shoe and carefully straightened it out with her fingers. “It’s still mine,” she said and bent low over the chest. - My..."

At the very bottom of the chest, a box rattled - the same treasured one that Borka had always wanted to look into. The box was opened. The father took out a tight package: it contained warm mittens for Borka, socks for his son-in-law and a sleeveless vest for his daughter. They were followed by an embroidered shirt made of antique faded silk - also for Borka. In the very corner lay a bag of candy, tied with a red ribbon. There was something written on the bag in large block letters. The father turned it over in his hands, squinted and read loudly: “To my grandson Boryushka.”

Borka suddenly turned pale, snatched the package from him and ran out into the street. There, sitting down at someone else’s gate, he peered for a long time at the grandmother’s scribbles: “To my grandson Boryushka.” The letter "sh" had four sticks. “I didn’t learn!” – Borka thought. How many times did he explain to her that the letter “w” has three sticks... And suddenly, as if alive, the grandmother stood in front of him - quiet, guilty, having not learned her lesson. Borka looked back at his house in confusion and, holding the bag in his hand, wandered down the street along someone else’s long fence...

He came home late in the evening; his eyes were swollen from tears, fresh clay stuck to his knees. He put Grandma’s bag under his pillow and, covering his head with the blanket, thought: “Grandma won’t come in the morning!”

(V. Oseeva “Grandma”)