Andrey Platonov - Bashkir folk tales retold by Andrey Platonov. Andrey Platonov - Bashkir folk tales retold by Andrey Platonov Platonov and stories for children

Andrey Platonov (real name Andrey Platonovich Klimentov) (1899-1951) - Russian Soviet writer, prose writer, one of the most original Russian writers in style of the first half of the 20th century.

Andrey was born on August 28 (16), 1899 in Voronezh, in the family of a railway mechanic Platon Firsovich Klimentov. However, traditionally his birthday is celebrated on September 1st.

Andrei Klimentov studied at a parish school, then at a city school. At the age of 15 (according to some sources, already at 13) he began working to support his family. According to Platonov: “We had a family... 10 people, and I am the eldest son - one worker, except for my father. My father... could not feed such a horde.” “Life immediately turned me from a child into an adult, depriving me of my youth.”

Until 1917, he changed several professions: he was an auxiliary worker, foundry worker, mechanic, etc., which he wrote about in his early stories “The Next One” (1918) and “Seryoga and I” (1921).

Participated in the civil war as a front-line correspondent. Since 1918, he published his works, collaborating with several newspapers as a poet, publicist and critic. In 1920, he changed his last name from Klimentov to Platonov (the pseudonym was formed on behalf of the writer’s father), and also joined the RCP (b), but a year later he left the party of his own free will.

In 1921, his first journalistic book, Electrification, was published, and in 1922, a book of poems, Blue Depth. In 1924, he graduated from the polytechnic and began working as a land reclamation worker and electrical engineer.

In 1926, Platonov was recalled to work in Moscow at the People's Commissariat for Agriculture. He was sent to engineering and administrative work in Tambov. In the same year they wrote “Epiphanian Gateways”, “Ethereal Route”, “City of Gradov”, which brought him fame. Platonov moved to Moscow, becoming a professional writer.

Gradually, Platonov’s attitude towards revolutionary changes changes until they are rejected. His prose ( "City of Gradov", "Doubting Makar" etc.) often caused rejection of criticism. In 1929, A.M. received a sharply negative assessment. Gorky and Platonov’s novel “Chevengur” was banned from publication. In 1931, the published work “For Future Use” caused sharp condemnation by A. A. Fadeev and I. V. Stalin. After this, Platonov practically stopped being published. Stories "Pit", "Juvenile Sea", the novel "Chevengur" was released only in the late 1980s and received worldwide recognition.

In 1931-1935, Andrei Platonov worked as an engineer in the People's Commissariat of Heavy Industry, but continued to write (the play "High voltage", story "Juvenile Sea"). In 1934, the writer and a group of colleagues traveled to Turkmenistan. After this trip, the story “Jan”, the story “Takyr”, the article "On the first socialist tragedy" and etc.

In 1936-1941, Platonov appeared in print mainly as a literary critic. Under various pseudonyms, he is published in the magazines “Literary Critic”, “Literary Review”, etc. He is working on a novel "Journey from Moscow to St. Petersburg"(his manuscript was lost at the beginning of the war), writes children's plays "Granny's Hut", "Good Titus", "Step Daughter".

In 1937, his story “The Potudan River” was published. In May of the same year, his 15-year-old son Platon was arrested, having returned from imprisonment in the fall of 1940, terminally ill with tuberculosis, after the troubles of Platonov’s friends. In January 1943 he died.

With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the writer and his family were evacuated to Ufa, where a collection of his war stories was published "Under the skies of the Motherland". In 1942, he volunteered to go to the front as a private, but soon became a military journalist, front-line correspondent for Red Star. Despite suffering from tuberculosis, Platonov did not leave the service until 1946. At this time, his war stories appeared in print: "Armor", "Spiritualized People"(1942), "No Death!" (1943), "Aphrodite" (1944), "Towards the Sunset"(1945), etc.

For Platonov’s story “Return” (original title “Ivanov’s Family”), published at the end of 1946, the writer was subjected to new attacks from critics the following year and was accused of slandering the Soviet system. After this, the opportunity to publish his works was closed for Platonov.

At the end of the 1940s, deprived of the opportunity to earn a living by writing, Platonov was engaged in literary adaptation of Russian and Bashkir fairy tales, which were published in children's magazines.

Platonov died on January 5, 1951 in Moscow from tuberculosis, which he contracted while caring for his son.

His book was published in 1954 "The Magic Ring and Other Tales". With Khrushchev's "thaw", his other books began to be published (the main works became known only in the 1980s). However, all of Platonov's publications during the Soviet period were accompanied by significant censorship restrictions.

Some works of Andrei Platonov were discovered only in the 1990s (for example, the novel written in the 30s "Happy Moscow").

Platonov

2afe4567e1bf64d32a5527244d104cea

"Smart granddaughter" - summary:

Once upon a time there lived a grandfather and grandmother and they had a seven-year-old granddaughter, Dunya. She was a very smart girl, the old people couldn’t get enough of it, she helped them so much. But soon the grandmother died and Dunya was left alone with her grandfather. One day my grandfather went to the city, on the way he caught up with his rich neighbor and they went together. The grandfather rode a mare, and the neighbor rode a stallion. We stopped for the night and that night my grandfather’s mare gave birth to a foal. And the foal climbed under the rich man's cart.

In the morning, the rich man was happy and told his grandfather that his stallion had given birth to a foal. The grandfather began to prove that only a mare could do this; he and his neighbor argued and decided to turn to the king so that he could judge them. But the king gave them 4 difficult riddles and said that whoever solves them correctly will receive a foal. And while they were solving riddles, the king took away their horses and carts.

The grandfather was upset, came home and told everything to his granddaughter. Dunya quickly solved the riddles and the next day the rich man and Dunya’s grandfather came to the king with the answers. After listening to them, the king asked his grandfather who helped him solve the riddles. The grandfather confessed everything, then the king began to give tasks for his granddaughter. But the smart granddaughter also turned out to be cunning. When the granddaughter came to the king, she reproached him and taught him how to judge the situation with the foal. It was necessary to simply set the grandfather's horse and the rich man's stallion in different directions. Whoever the foal runs after is the one he will stay with. They did so, naturally, the foal ran after its mother. And the king was angry that his seven-year-old smart granddaughter humiliated him so much and sent an angry dog ​​after them. But the grandfather affectionately hit the dog first with a whip, and then added a shaft, which discouraged the evil dog from all desire to bite.

Platonov

50c3d7614917b24303ee6a220679dab3

"Hassle" - summary:

The soldier served for 25 years and went home. But before that, he decided to go in and look at the king, otherwise it would not be convenient in front of his relatives. The soldier was very good at composing fairy tales.

Ivan the soldier came to milk Tsar Agey, and that Tsar was very fond of listening to and composing fairy tales, and telling them to others. The king first asked the soldier three riddles, but Ivan quickly solved them. The king liked the soldier, he presented him with royal coins and asked him to tell a story. But Ivan asked to take a walk first, since he had served for 25 years and wanted to be free a little, and after the walk he promised Agey to tell a story.

The Tsar let Ivan go for a walk and the soldier went to the merchant's tavern. He quickly spent the royal money there, and when the money ran out, he began to treat the merchant and told him a fairy tale that he was a bear, and the merchant did not notice how he himself became a bear. He was scared, but Ivan told him what to do - invite guests and treat them. The guests arrived in large numbers, emptied the tavern, and dispersed, and the merchant jumped from the floor and lost consciousness. When he woke up, there was no one there, only his tavern stood empty. The merchant went to the king to find the soldier and told Agey what Ivan had done to him. But the king only laughed. But he himself wanted Ivan to tell him such a tale.

They found Ivan, brought him to the king, and Ivan began to tell Agey a fairy tale that a flood began and they turned into fish. And the king did not notice how he was drawn into the fairy tale and began to believe Ivan. They swam on the waves, then got caught in fishing nets, Ivan’s scales were torn off, and the king fish’s head was cut off. When the fairy tale ended, the king became angry and kicked Ivan out, and issued a decree that no one would let him into the courtyard.

So Ivan the Soldier walked, wandering from court to court and was not allowed anywhere, not even into his own home, because the king did not order it. But some people let Ivan in in exchange for a fairy tale, because they knew what a master he was in this matter.

Platonov

788d986905533aba051261497ecffcbb

Summary of "Ivan the Talentless and Elena the Wise":

In one village there lived an old woman with her son. The son's name was Ivan, and he was so untalented that nothing worked for him, no matter what he took on. His old mother lamented this and dreamed of marrying him to a business wife.

One day, when the mother and son had finished everything that was in their house, the old woman again began to lament over her unlucky son, while Ivan, meanwhile, was sitting on the rubble. An old man passed by and asked for food. Ivan honestly answered that everything edible in their house had run out, but he washed the old man in the bathhouse and put him to sleep on the stove. And in the morning, grandfather promised Ivan that he would not forget his kindness and would definitely thank him.

The next day, Ivan promised his mother that he would get bread and went to the old man. The old man brought him to his hut in a forest village, fed him a roasted lamb with bread, and sent two pieces of bread and another lamb to Ivan’s mother. After talking and learning that Ivan was not married, the grandfather called his daughter and married her to Ivan.

The old man’s daughter was very smart and her name was Elena the Wise. She and Ivan lived well, Ivan’s mother became well-fed and contented. Grandfather sometimes went on the road, where he collected wisdom and wrote it down in his book of wisdom. One day he brought a magic mirror through which you could see the whole world.

Soon the grandfather got ready for another trip for wisdom, called Ivan and gave him the key to the barn, but strictly forbade him to let Elena try on the dress that hung in the far corner. When his grandfather left, Ivan went to the barn and found chests with gold and other goods there, and in the far closet a magical beautiful dress made of gems, he could not resist and called Elena.

Elena really liked the dress and persuaded Ivan to let her try it on. Having put on a dress and expressed a wish, she turned into a dove and flew away from Ivan. Ivan got ready to hit the road and went in search of Elena the Wise. On the road, he saved a pike and a sparrow from death, who promised to thank him.

Ivan walked for a long time and reached the sea. There he met a local resident and learned that Elena the Wise lived in this kingdom and came to her palace. There was a palisade around the palace on which were mounted the heads of Elena's suitors, who could not prove their wisdom to her. Ivan met with Elena and she gave him the task of hiding so that she could not find him.

At night, Ivan helped the servant Daria mend the magical dress of Elena the Wise, for which she was very grateful to him. And in the morning Ivan began to hide. At first he hid in a haystack, but Daria shouted to him from the porch that even she could see him< так как его выдавали собаки. Тогда Иван позвал щуку, которая спрятала его на дне.

However, Elena used her magical objects - a mirror and a book of wisdom and found him. The first time she forgave him and allowed him to hide again. Then Ivan asked the sparrow for help. The sparrow turned Ivan into grain and hid it in his beak. But Elena the Wise found him again with the help of the book of wisdom, breaking her mirror, which could not find Ivan.

And for the second time, Elena did not execute Ivan, but allowed him to hide. This time he was helped by Daria, whom he saved from death by sewing up her dress. Daria turned Ivan into the air and breathed into herself, and then exhaled into the book of wisdom and Ivan became a letter. Elena the Wise looked at the book for a long time, but could not understand anything. Then she threw the book on the floor, the letters scattered and one of them turned into Ivan.

Then Elena the Wise realized that her husband Ivan was not so mediocre, since he was able to outwit the magic mirror and the book of wisdom. And he again began to live, live and make good. And the next morning their parents came to visit them and were happy for them. And Ivan the mediocre and Elena the Wise lived happily ever after, and so did their parents.

Platonov

e7f8a7fb0b77bcb3b283af5be021448f

"Finist - clear falcon" - summary:

There lived a father with three daughters, the mother died. The youngest was called Maryushka and she was a needlewoman and did all the housework. Among all the daughters, she was the most beautiful and hardworking. The father often went to the market and asked his daughters what gifts to bring them. The eldest and middle daughters always ordered things - boots, dresses, and the youngest always asked her father to bring a feather from Finist - the clear falcon.

2 times the father could not find the feather, but on the third time he met an old man who gave him a feather from Finist, the clear falcon. Maryushka was very happy and admired the feather for a long time, but in the evening she dropped it and Finist, a clear falcon, immediately appeared, hit the floor and turned into a good fellow. They talked with Maryushka all night. And the next three nights too - Finist flew in in the evening and flew away in the morning.

The sisters heard that their younger sister was talking to someone at night and told their father, but he did nothing. Then the sisters stuck needles and knives into the window, and when Finist, the clear falcon, flew in in the evening, he began to beat on the window and injured himself, and Maryushka fell asleep from fatigue and did not hear it. Then Finist shouted that he was flying away and if Maryushka wanted to find him, she would need to take down three pairs of cast-iron boots, wear 3 cast-iron staffs on the grass and devour 3 stone loaves.

The next morning Maryushka saw Finist’s blood and remembered everything. The blacksmith made cast iron shoes and staves for her, she took three stone loaves and went in search of Finist, the clear falcon. When she had worn out the first pair of shoes and staff and eaten the first bread, she found a hut in which an old woman lived. There she spent the night, and the next morning the old woman gave her a magical gift - a silver bottom, a golden spindle and advised her to go to her middle sister, maybe she knows where to look for Finist - the clear falcon.

When Maryushka wore out the second pair of cast-iron shoes and the second staff, and devoured the second stone bread, she found the hut of the old woman’s middle sister. Maryushka spent the night with her and in the morning received a magical gift - a silver plate with a golden egg and advice to go to the elder sister of the old women, who certainly knew where Finist, the clear falcon, was.

The third pair of cast-iron shoes was worn out, the third staff was worn out, and Maryushka gnawed away the third stone bread. Soon she saw her older sister’s hut, where she spent the night and in the morning received a magic golden hoop and a needle as a gift.

Maryushka went back barefoot and soon saw a courtyard in which stood a beautiful tower. A mistress lived in it with her daughter and servants, and her daughter was married to Finist, the clear falcon. Maryushka asked her landlady to work and the landlady took her. She was happy about such a skillful and unpretentious worker. And soon the daughter saw Maryushka’s magical gifts and exchanged them for a meeting with Finist, the clear falcon. But he did not recognize Maryushka - she had become so thin on the long hike. For two nights, Maryushka drove flies away from Finist, the clear falcon, while he was sleeping, but she could not wake him up - her daughter gave him a sleeping potion at night.

But on the third night Maryushka cried over Finist and her tears fell on his face and chest and burned him. He immediately woke up, recognized Maryushka and turned into a falcon, and Maryushka turned into a dove. And they flew to Maryushka’s home. The father and sisters were very happy with them, and soon they had a wedding and lived happily until the end of their days.

Recovery of the dead

I call from the abyss
[ova of the dead

The mother returned to her house. She was a refugee from the Germans, but she could not live anywhere other than her native place, and returned home.
She passed through intermediate fields past German fortifications twice, because the front here was uneven, and she walked along a straight, nearby road. She had no fear and was not afraid of anyone, and her enemies did not harm her. She walked through the fields, sad, bare-haired, with a vague, as if blind, face. And she didn’t care what was in the world now and what was happening in it, and nothing in the world could disturb her or make her happy, because her grief was eternal and her sadness was insatiable - her mother lost all her children dead. She was now so weak and indifferent to the whole world that she walked along the road like a withered blade of grass carried by the wind, and everything she met also remained indifferent to her. And it became even more difficult for her, because she felt that she did not need anyone, and that no one needed her anyway. This is enough to kill a person, but she did not die; she needed to see her home, where she lived her life, and the place where her children died in battle and execution.
On her way she met Germans, but they did not touch this old woman; It was strange for them to see such a sad old woman, they were horrified by the sight of humanity on her face, and they left her unattended to die on her own. In life there is this vague, alienated light on people’s faces, frightening the beast and the hostile person, and no one can destroy such people, and it is impossible to approach them. Beast and man are more willing to fight with their own kind, but he leaves those unlike him aside, fearing to be frightened by them and to be defeated by an unknown force.
Having gone through the war, the old mother returned home. But her homeland was now empty. A small, poor one-family house, plastered with clay, painted yellow, with a brick chimney that looked like a man’s head in thought, had long since burned out from the German fire and left behind embers already overgrown with the grass of the grave. And all the neighboring residential areas, this entire old city also died, and it became light and sad all around, and you could see far away across the silent land. A little time will pass, and the place where people live will be overgrown with free grass, the winds will blow it out, the rain streams will level it, and then there will be no trace of man left, and all the torment of his existence on earth will be no one to understand and inherit as good and teaching for the future, because no one will survive. And the mother sighed from this last thought and from the pain in her heart for her unmemorable dying life. But her heart was kind, and out of love for the dead, she wanted to live for all the dead in order to fulfill their will, which they took with them to the grave.
She sat down in the middle of the cooled fire and began to sort through the ashes of her home with her hands.

A story about war for reading in elementary school. A story about the Great Patriotic War for primary schoolchildren.

Andrey Platonov. Little soldier

Not far from the front line, inside the surviving station, Red Army soldiers who had fallen asleep on the floor were snoring sweetly; the happiness of relaxation was etched on their tired faces.

On the second track, the boiler of the hot duty locomotive quietly hissed, as if a monotonous, soothing voice was singing from a long-abandoned house. But in one corner of the station room, where a kerosene lamp was burning, people occasionally whispered soothing words to each other, and then they too fell into silence.

There stood two majors, similar to each other not in external features, but in the general kindness of their wrinkled, tanned faces; each of them held the boy's hand in his own, and the child looked pleadingly at the commanders. The child did not let go of the hand of one major, then pressed his face to it, and carefully tried to free himself from the hand of the other. The child looked about ten years old, and he was dressed like a seasoned fighter - in a gray overcoat, worn and pressed against his body, in a cap and boots, apparently sewn to fit a child’s foot. His small face, thin, weather-beaten, but not emaciated, adapted and already accustomed to life, was now turned to one major; the child's bright eyes clearly revealed his sadness, as if they were the living surface of his heart; he was sad that he was being separated from his father or an older friend, who must have been a major to him.

The second major drew the child by the hand and caressed him, comforting him, but the boy, without removing his hand, remained indifferent to him. The first major was also saddened, and he whispered to the child that he would soon take him to him and they would meet again for an inseparable life, but now they were parting for a short time. The boy believed him, but the truth itself could not console his heart, which was attached to only one person and wanted to be with him constantly and close, and not far away. The child already knew what great distances and times of war were - it was difficult for people from there to return to each other, so he did not want separation, and his heart could not be alone, it was afraid that, left alone, it would die. And in his last request and hope, the boy looked at the major, who must leave him with a stranger.

“Well, Seryozha, goodbye for now,” said the major whom the child loved. “Don’t really try to fight, when you grow up, you will.” Don’t interfere with the German and take care of yourself so that I can find you alive and intact. Well, what are you doing, what are you doing - hold on, soldier!

Seryozha began to cry. The major picked him up in his arms and kissed his face several times. Then the major went with the child to the exit, and the second major also followed them, instructing me to guard the things left behind.

The child returned in the arms of another major; he looked aloofly and timidly at the commander, although this major persuaded him with gentle words and attracted him to himself as best he could.

The major, who replaced the one who had left, admonished the silent child for a long time, but he, faithful to one feeling and one person, remained alienated.

Anti-aircraft guns began firing not far from the station. The boy listened to their booming, dead sounds, and excited interest appeared in his gaze.

- Their scout is coming! - he said quietly, as if to himself. - It goes high, and anti-aircraft guns won’t take it, we need to send a fighter there.

“They’ll send it,” said the major. - They're watching us there.

The train we needed was expected only the next day, and all three of us went to the hostel for the night. There the major fed the child from his heavily loaded sack. “How tired I am of this bag during the war,” said the major, “and how grateful I am to it!” The boy fell asleep after eating, and Major Bakhichev told me about his fate.

Sergei Labkov was the son of a colonel and a military doctor. His father and mother served in the same regiment, so they took their only son to live with them and grow up in the army. Seryozha was now in his tenth year; He took the war and his father’s cause to heart and had already begun to truly understand why war was needed. And then one day he heard his father talking in the dugout with one officer and caring that the Germans would definitely blow up his regiment’s ammunition when retreating. The regiment had previously left German envelopment, well, with haste, of course, and left its warehouse with ammunition with the Germans, and now the regiment had to go forward and return the lost land and its goods on it, and the ammunition, too, which was needed. “They probably already laid the wire to our warehouse - they know that we will have to retreat,” the colonel, Seryozha’s father, said then. Sergei listened and realized what his father was worried about. The boy knew the location of the regiment before the retreat, and so he, small, thin, cunning, crawled at night to our warehouse, cut the explosive closing wire and remained there for another whole day, guarding so that the Germans did not repair the damage, and if they did, then again cut the wire. Then the colonel drove the Germans out of there, and the entire warehouse came into his possession.

Soon this little boy made his way further behind enemy lines; there he found out by the signs where the command post of a regiment or battalion was, walked around three batteries at a distance, remembered everything exactly - his memory was not spoiled by anything - and when he returned home, he showed his father on the map how it was and where everything was. The father thought, gave his son to an orderly for constant observation of him and opened fire on these points. Everything turned out correctly, the son gave him the correct serifs. He is small, this Seryozhka, the enemy took him for a gopher in the grass: let him move, they say. And Seryozhka probably didn’t move the grass, he walked without a sigh.

The boy also deceived the orderly, or, so to speak, seduced him: once he took him somewhere, and together they killed a German - it is not known which of them - and Sergei found the position.

So he lived in the regiment with his father and mother and with the soldiers. The mother, seeing such a son, could no longer tolerate his uncomfortable position and decided to send him to the rear. But Sergei could no longer leave the army; his character was drawn into the war. And he told that major, his father’s deputy, Savelyev, who had just left, that he would not go to the rear, but would rather hide as a prisoner to the Germans, learn from them everything he needed, and again return to his father’s unit when his mother left him. miss you. And he would probably do so, because he has a military character.

And then grief happened, and there was no time to send the boy to the rear. His father, a colonel, was seriously wounded, although the battle, they say, was weak, and he died two days later in a field hospital. The mother also fell ill, became exhausted - she had previously been maimed by two shrapnel wounds, one in the cavity - and a month after her husband she also died; maybe she still missed her husband... Sergei remained an orphan.

Major Savelyev took command of the regiment, he took the boy to him and became his father and mother instead of his relatives - the whole person. The boy also answered him with all his heart.

- But I’m not from their unit, I’m from another. But I know Volodya Savelyev from a long time ago. And so we met here at the front headquarters. Volodya was sent to advanced training courses, but I was there on another matter, and now I’m going back to my unit. Volodya Savelyev told me to take care of the boy until he arrives back... And when will Volodya return and where will he be sent! Well, it will be visible there...

Major Bakhichev dozed off and fell asleep. Seryozha Labkov snored in his sleep, like an adult, an elderly man, and his face, having now moved away from sorrow and memories, became calm and innocently happy, revealing the image of the saint of childhood, from where the war took him. I also fell asleep, taking advantage of the unnecessary time so that it would not be wasted.

We woke up at dusk, at the very end of a long June day. Now there were two of us in three beds - Major Bakhichev and I, but Seryozha Labkov was not there. The major was worried, but then decided that the boy had gone somewhere for a short time. Later we went with him to the station and visited the military commandant, but no one noticed the little soldier in the rear crowd of the war.

The next morning, Seryozha Labkov also did not return to us, and God knows where he went, tormented by the feeling of his childish heart for the man who left him - perhaps after him, perhaps back to his father’s regiment, where the graves of his father and mother were.

Andrey Platonov

Stories

ADVENTURE

Before Dvanov’s eyes, accustomed to distant horizons, a narrow valley of some ancient, long-dry river opened up. The valley was occupied by the settlement of Petropavlovka - a huge herd of hungry households huddled together at a cramped watering hole.

On Petropavlovka Street Dvanov saw boulders that had once been brought here by glaciers. Boulder stones now lay near the huts and served as a seat for thoughtful old people.

Dvanov remembered these stones when he was sitting in the Petropavlovsk village council. He went there to get a place to stay for the night and to write an article for the provincial newspaper. Dvanov wrote that nature does not create ordinary things, so it turns out well. But nature has no gift, she takes with patience. From the rare ravines of the steppe, from the deep soils, it is necessary to give water to the high steppe in order to establish socialism in the steppe. While hunting for water, Dvanov reported, we will simultaneously reach the goal of our hearts - indifferent peasants will understand and love us, because love is not a gift, but construction.

Dvanov knew how to combine the intimate with the social in order to preserve within himself an attraction to the social.

Dvanov began to be tormented by the certainty that he already knew how to create a socialist world in the steppe, but nothing had yet been accomplished. He could not endure the gap between truth and reality for long. His head sat on his warm neck, and what his head thought immediately turned into steps, manual labor and behavior. Dvanov felt his consciousness like hunger - you cannot renounce it and you will not forget it.

The Council refused the supply, and the man, whom everyone in Petropavlovka called God, showed Dvanov the road to the settlement of Kaverino, from where it was twenty miles to the railway.

At noon Dvanov went out onto the mountain road. Below lay the gloomy Valley of a quiet steppe river. But it was clear that the river was dying: it was filled with ravines, and it was not so much flowing as being dissolved into swamps. Autumn melancholy hung over the swamps. The fish sank to the bottom, the birds flew away, the insects froze in the crevices of the dead sedge. Living creatures loved the warmth and the irritating light of the sun, their solemn ringing shrank into low holes and slowed down into a whisper.

Dvanov believed in the opportunity to eavesdrop and collect all that is most sonorous, sad and triumphant in nature in order to make songs as powerful as natural forces and as enticing as the wind. In this wilderness, Dvanov began talking to himself. He liked to talk alone in open places. Talking to yourself is an art; talking to others is fun. That is why a person goes into society, into fun, like water down a slope.

Dvanov made a semicircle with his head and looked around half of the visible world. And he spoke again to think:

“Nature is the basis of the matter. These glorified hillocks and streams are not only field poetry. They can water the soil, cows and people and move motors.”

In sight of the smoke from the village of Kaverino, the road went over a ravine. In the ravine the air thickened into darkness. There were some kind of silent swamps and, perhaps, strange people huddled there, retreating from the diversity of life for the monotony of thoughtfulness.

The snoring of tired horses was heard from the depths of the ravine. Some people were riding, and their horses were stuck in the clay.

There is in a distant country.
On the other side
What do we dream about in our sleep?
But the enemy got it...

The horses' stride straightened. The detachment covered the front singer in chorus, but in their own way and with a different tune.

Cut it out, apple.
Ripe gold.
The Council will cut you off
Hammer and sickle...

The lone singer continued at odds with the squad:

Here is my sword and soul,
And there is my happiness...

The squad crushed the end of the verse with a chorus:

Eh, apple.
Sincere,
You'll end up on rations, -
You will be rotten...
You grow on a tree
And by the way, the tree
And you will get into the Council
With stamp number...

People immediately whistled and finished the song recklessly:

Eh, apple.
You keep freedom:
Neither the Soviets nor the kings,
And to all the people...

The song died down. Dvanov stopped, interested in the procession in the ravine.

Hey top man! - they shouted to Dvanov from the detachment. - Get down to the beginningless people!

Dvanov remained in place.

Walk fast! - one said loudly in a thick voice, probably the one who sang. - Otherwise, count to half - and sit on the gun!

Dvanov did not understand what he needed to do, and answered what he wanted:

Come here yourself - it’s drier here! Why are you killing horses in the ravine, kulak guards!

The squad below stopped.

Nikitok, do it right through! - ordered a thick voice.

Nikitok put his rifle to work, but first, at the expense of God, he relieved his depressed spirit:

On the scrotum of Jesus Christ, on the rib of the Virgin Mary and throughout the entire Christian generation - come on!

Dvanov saw a flash of intense, silent fire and rolled from the edge of the ravine to the bottom, as if his leg had been hit with a crowbar. He did not lose clear consciousness and, as he rolled down, he heard a terrible noise in the ground, to which his ears were pressed alternately as he walked. Dvanov knew that he was wounded in his right leg - an iron bird had dug into it and was moving with the prickly spines of its wings.

In the ravine, Dvanov grabbed the horse’s warm leg, and he felt no fear near that leg. My leg trembled quietly from fatigue and smelled of the sweat and grass of the roads I had traveled.

Protect him, Nikitok, from the fire of life! The clothes are yours.

Dvanov heard. He grabbed the horse's leg with both hands, the leg turned into a pressing living body. Dvanov’s heart rose to his throat, he cried out in the unconsciousness of that feeling when life from the heart moves to the skin, and immediately felt a relieving, satisfying peace. Nature did not fail to take from Dvanov what he was created for: the seed of reproduction. In his last time, embracing the soil and the horse, Dvanov for the first time recognized the echoing passion of life and was surprised at the insignificance of thought before this bird of immortality, which touched him with its weather-beaten, fluttering wing.

Nikitok came up and tried Dvanov’s forehead: was he still warm? The hand was big and hot. Dvanov didn’t want to; so that this hand would soon tear away from him, and he would place his caressing palm on it. But Dvanov knew that Nikitok was checking and helped him:

Hit the head, Nikita. Wedge the skull quickly!

Nikita did not look like his hand - Dvanov caught this - he cried out in a thin, lousy voice, without matching the peace of life stored in his hand.

Oh, are you okay? I won’t wedge you, but I’ll destroy you: why do you need to die right away - you’re not human? Suffer yourself, lie down - you'll die harder!