Paustovsky collection of miracles summary. Collection of miracles
Everyone, even the most serious person, not to mention, of course, the boys, has his own secret and slightly funny dream. I had the same dream - to definitely get to Borovoe Lake.
From the village where I lived that summer, the lake was only twenty kilometers away. Everyone tried to dissuade me from going - the road was boring, and the lake was like a lake, all around there were only forests, dry swamps and lingonberries. The picture is famous!
- Why are you rushing there, to this lake! - the garden watchman Semyon was angry. -What didn’t you see? What a fussy, quick-witted bunch of people, oh my God! You see, he needs to touch everything with his own hand, look out with his own eye! What will you look for there? One pond. And nothing more!
- Were you there?
- Why did he surrender to me, this lake! I don't have anything else to do, or what? This is where they sit, all my business! - Semyon tapped his brown neck with his fist. - On the hill!
But I still went to the lake. Two village boys stuck with me - Lenka and Vanya. Before we had time to leave the outskirts, the complete hostility of the characters of Lenka and Vanya was immediately revealed. Lenka valued everything he saw around him in rubles.
“Look,” he told me in his booming voice, “the gander is coming.” How long do you think he can handle?
- How do I know!
“It’s probably worth a hundred rubles,” Lenka said dreamily and immediately asked: “But how much can this pine tree cost?” Two hundred rubles? Or for all three hundred?
- Accountant! - Vanya remarked contemptuously and sniffed. “He’s worth a dime’s worth of brains, but he’s asking prices for everything.” My eyes would not look at him.
After that, Lenka and Vanya stopped, and I heard a well-known conversation - a harbinger of a fight. It consisted, as is customary, only of questions and exclamations.
- Whose brains are they worth for a dime? My?
- Probably not mine!
- Look!
- See for yourself!
- Don't grab it! The cap was not sewn for you!
- Oh, I wish I could push you in my own way!
- Don’t scare me! Don't poke me in the nose!
The fight was short, but decisive, Lenka picked up his cap, spat and went, offended, back to the village.
I began to shame Vanya.
- Of course! - said Vanya, embarrassed. - I fought in the heat of the moment. Everyone is fighting with him, with Lenka. He's kind of boring! Give him free rein, he will put prices on everything, like in a general store. For every spikelet. And he will certainly clear the entire forest and chop it down for firewood. And I’m afraid more than anything in the world when the forest is being cleared. I'm so afraid of passion!
- Why so?
— Oxygen from forests. The forests will be cut down, the oxygen will become liquid and smelly. And the earth will no longer be able to attract him, to keep him close to him. Where will he fly? — Vanya pointed to the fresh morning sky. - The person will have nothing to breathe. The forester explained it to me.
We climbed the slope and entered an oak copse. Immediately red ants began to eat us. They stuck to my legs and fell from the branches by the collar. Dozens of ant roads, covered with sand, stretched between oaks and junipers. Sometimes such a road passed, as if through a tunnel, under the gnarled roots of an oak tree and rose again to the surface. Ant traffic on these roads was continuous. The ants ran in one direction empty, and returned with goods - white grains, dry beetle legs, dead wasps and a shaggy caterpillar.
- Bustle! - said Vanya. - Like in Moscow. An old man comes to this forest from Moscow to collect ant eggs. Every year. They take it away in bags. This is the best bird food. And they are good for fishing. You need a tiny little hook!
Behind an oak copse, on the edge of a loose sandy road, stood a lopsided cross with a black tin icon. Red ladybugs with white speckles were crawling along the cross. A quiet wind blew in my face from the oat fields. The oats rustled, bent, and a gray wave ran over them.
Beyond the oat field we passed through the village of Polkovo. I have long noticed that almost all of the regiment’s peasants differ from the surrounding residents in their tall stature.
- Stately people in Polkovo! - our Zaborievskys said with envy. - Grenadiers! Drummers!
In Polkovo we went to rest in the hut of Vasily Lyalin, a tall, handsome old man with a piebald beard. Gray strands stuck out in disarray in his black shaggy hair.
When we entered Lyalin’s hut, he shouted:
- Keep your heads down! Heads! Everyone is smashing my forehead against the lintel! The people in Polkov are painfully tall, but they are slow-witted - they build huts according to their short stature.
While talking with Lyalin, I finally learned why the regimental peasants were so tall.
- Story! - said Lyalin. - Do you think we went so high in vain? Even the little bug doesn’t live in vain. It also has its purpose.
Vanya laughed.
- Wait until you laugh! - Lyalin remarked sternly. “I’m not yet learned enough to laugh.” You listen. Was there such a foolish tsar in Russia - Emperor Paul? Or wasn't it?
“It was,” said Vanya. - We studied.
- Was and floated away. And he did such a lot of things that we still have hiccups to this day. The gentleman was fierce. The soldier at the parade squinted his eyes in the wrong direction - he now gets excited and begins to thunder: “To Siberia! To hard labor! Three hundred ramrods!” This is what the king was like! Well, what happened was that the grenadier regiment did not please him. He shouts: “March in the indicated direction for a thousand miles!” Let's go! And after a thousand miles we stop for an eternal rest!” And he points in the direction with his finger. Well, the regiment, of course, turned and walked. What are you going to do? We walked and walked for three months and reached this place. The forest all around is impassable. One wild. They stopped and began cutting down huts, crushing clay, laying stoves, and digging wells. They built a village and called it Polkovo, as a sign that a whole regiment built it and lived in it. Then, of course, liberation came, and the soldiers took root in this area, and, almost, everyone stayed here. The area, as you can see, is fertile. There were those soldiers - grenadiers and giants - our ancestors. Our growth comes from them. If you don’t believe it, go to the city, to the museum. They will show you the papers there. Everything is spelled out in them. And just think, if only they could walk two more miles and come out to the river, they would stop there. But no, they didn’t dare disobey the order—they just stopped. People are still surprised. “Why are you guys from the regiment, they say, running into the forest? Didn't you have a place by the river? They say they are scary, big guys, but apparently they don’t have enough guesses in their heads.” Well, you explain to them how it happened, then they agree. “They say you can’t go against an order! It is a fact!"
Vasily Lyalin volunteered to take us to the forest and show us the path to Borovoe Lake. First we passed through a sandy field overgrown with immortelle and wormwood. Then thickets of young pines ran out to meet us. The pine forest greeted us with silence and coolness after the hot fields. High in the slanting rays of the sun, blue jays fluttered as if on fire. Clear puddles stood on the overgrown road, and clouds floated through these blue puddles. It smelled of strawberries and heated tree stumps. Drops of either dew or yesterday’s rain glistened on the leaves of the hazel tree. Cones fell loudly.
- Great forest! - Lyalin sighed. “The wind will blow, and these pines will hum like bells.”
Then the pines gave way to birches, and behind them the water sparkled.
- Borovoe? - I asked.
- No. It’s still a walk and a walk to get to Borovoye. This is Larino Lake. Let's go, look into the water, take a look.
The water in Larino Lake was deep and clear to the very bottom. Only near the shore she shuddered a little - there, from under the moss, a spring flowed into the lake. At the bottom lay several dark large trunks. They sparkled with a weak and dark fire when the sun reached them.
“Black oak,” said Lyalin. — Stained, centuries-old. We pulled one out, but it’s difficult to work with. Breaks saws. But if you make a thing - a rolling pin or, say, a rocker - it will last forever! Heavy wood, sinks in water.
The sun shone in the dark water. Beneath it lay ancient oak trees, as if cast from black steel. And butterflies flew over the water, reflected in it with yellow and purple petals.
Lyalin led us onto a remote road.
“Step straight,” he showed, “until you run into mosshars, a dry swamp.” And along the mosshars there will be a path all the way to the lake. Just be careful, there are a lot of sticks there.
He said goodbye and left. Vanya and I walked along the forest road. The forest became higher, more mysterious and darker. Streams of golden resin froze on the pine trees.
At first, the ruts that had long ago been overgrown with grass were still visible, but then they disappeared, and the pink heather covered the entire road with a dry, cheerful carpet.
The road led us to a low cliff. Beneath it lay mosshars - thick birch and aspen undergrowth, warmed to the roots. The trees grew from deep moss. Small yellow flowers were scattered here and there on the moss and dry branches with white lichens were scattered.
A narrow path led through the mshars. She avoided high hummocks. At the end of the path, the water glowed black blue - Borovoe Lake.
We walked carefully along the mshars. Pegs, sharp as spears, stuck out from under the moss - the remains of birch and aspen trunks. Lingonberry thickets have begun. One cheek of each berry - the one turned to the south - was completely red, and the other was just beginning to turn pink. A heavy capercaillie jumped out from behind a hummock and ran into the small forest, breaking dry wood.
We went out to the lake. The grass stood waist-high along its banks. Water splashed in the roots of old trees. A wild duckling jumped out from under the roots and ran across the water with a desperate squeak.
The water in Borovoye was black and clean. Islands of white lilies bloomed on the water and smelled sweetly. The fish struck and the lilies swayed.
- What a blessing! - said Vanya. - Let's live here until our crackers run out.
I agreed. We stayed at the lake for two days. We saw sunsets and twilight and a tangle of plants appearing before us in the light of the fire. We heard the cries of wild geese and the sounds of night rain. He walked for a short time, about an hour, and quietly rang across the lake, as if he was stretching thin, cobweb-like, trembling strings between the black sky and water.
That's all I wanted to tell you. But since then I will not believe anyone that there are boring places on our earth that do not provide any food for the eye, the ear, the imagination, or human thought.
Only in this way, by exploring some piece of our country, can you understand how good it is and how our hearts are attached to its every path, spring, and even to the timid squeaking of a forest bird.
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Collection of miracles
Everyone, even the most serious person, not to mention the boys, of course, has their own secret and slightly funny dream. I had the same dream - to definitely get to Borovoe Lake.
From the village where I lived that summer, the lake was only twenty kilometers away. Everyone tried to dissuade me from going - the road was boring, and the lake was like a lake, with only forests, dry swamps and lingonberries all around. The picture is famous!
- Why are you rushing there, to this lake? - the garden watchman Semyon was angry. -What didn’t you see? What a fussy, grasping people, oh my God! You see, he needs to touch everything with his own hand, look out with his own eye! What will you look for there? One pond. And nothing more!
– Were you there?
- Why did he surrender to me, this lake! I don't have anything else to do, or what? This is where they sit, all my business! – Semyon tapped his fist on his brown neck. - On the hill!
But I still went to the lake. Two village boys, Lyonka and Vanya, tagged along with me. Before we had time to leave the outskirts, the complete hostility of the characters of Lyonka and Vanya was immediately revealed. Lyonka calculated everything he saw around him into rubles.
“Look,” he told me in his booming voice, “the gander is coming.” How long do you think he can handle?
- How do I know!
“It’s probably worth a hundred rubles,” Lyonka said dreamily and immediately asked: “But how much will this pine tree last?” Two hundred rubles? Or for all three hundred?
- Accountant! – Vanya remarked contemptuously and sniffed. “He’s worth a dime’s worth of brains, but he puts a price on everything.” My eyes would not look at him!
After that, Lyonka and Vanya stopped, and I heard a well-known conversation - a harbinger of a fight. It consisted, as is customary, only of questions and exclamations.
– Whose brains are they worth for a dime? My?
- Probably not mine!
- Look!
- Look for yourself!
- Don't grab it! The cap was not sewn for you!
- Oh, I wish I could push you in my own way!
- Don’t scare me! Don't poke me in the nose!
The fight was short but decisive.
Lyonka picked up his cap, spat and went, offended, back to the village.
I began to shame Vanya.
- Of course! – said Vanya, embarrassed. - I fought in the heat of the moment. Everyone is fighting with him, with Lyonka. He's kind of boring! Give him free rein, he puts prices on everything, like in a general store. For every spikelet. And he will certainly clear the entire forest and chop it down for firewood. And I’m afraid more than anything in the world when the forest is being cleared. I'm so afraid of passion!
- Why so?
– Oxygen comes from forests. The forests will be cut down, the oxygen will become liquid and smelly. And the earth will no longer be able to attract him, to keep him close to him. Where will he fly? – Vanya pointed to the fresh morning sky. - The person will have nothing to breathe. The forester explained it to me.
We climbed the slope and entered an oak copse. Immediately red ants began to eat us. They stuck to my legs and fell from the branches by the collar. Dozens of ant roads, covered with sand, stretched between oaks and junipers. Sometimes such a road passed, as if through a tunnel, under the gnarled roots of an oak tree and rose to the surface again. Ant traffic on these roads was continuous. The ants fled in one direction empty, and returned with goods: white grains, dry beetle legs, dead wasps and a furry caterpillar.
- Bustle! - said Vanya. - Like in Moscow. An old man comes to this forest from Moscow to collect ant eggs. Every year. They take it away in bags. This is the best bird food. And they are good for fishing. You need a tiny little hook!
Behind an oak copse, on the edge of a loose sandy road, stood a lopsided cross with a black tin icon. Red and white-speckled ladybugs crawled along the cross. A quiet wind blew in my face from the oat fields. The oats rustled, bent, and a gray wave ran over them.
Beyond the oat field we passed through the village of Polkovo. I have long noticed that almost all of the regiment’s peasants differ from the surrounding residents in their tall stature.
- Stately people in Polkovo! - our Zaborievskys said with envy. - Grenadiers! Drummers!
In Polkovo we went to rest in the hut of Vasily Lyalin, a tall, handsome old man with a piebald beard. Gray strands stuck out in disarray in his black shaggy hair.
When we entered Lyalin’s hut, he shouted:
- Put your head down! Head! Everyone is smashing my forehead against the lintel! The people in Polkovo are painfully tall, but the slow-witted people build their huts according to their short stature.
While talking with Lyalin, I finally learned why the regimental peasants were so tall.
- Story! - said Lyalin. - Do you think we went so high in vain? Even the little bug doesn’t live in vain. It also has its meaning.
Vanya laughed.
- Wait until you laugh! – Lyalin remarked sternly. - I’m not yet learned enough to laugh. You listen. Was there such a foolish tsar in Russia - Emperor Paul? Or wasn't it?
“It was,” said Vanya. - We studied.
- Was there, but floated away. And he did such a lot of things that we still have hiccups to this day. The gentleman was fierce. A soldier at the parade squinted his eyes in the wrong direction - he now gets excited and begins to thunder: “To Siberia! To hard labor! Three hundred ramrods!” This is what the king was like! Well, what happened was that the grenadier regiment did not please him. He shouts: “March in the indicated direction for a thousand miles. Let's go! And after a thousand miles, stop for an eternal rest!” And he points in the direction with his finger. Well, the regiment, of course, turned and walked. What are you going to do? We walked and walked for three months and reached this place. The forest all around is impassable. One wild. They stopped and began cutting down huts, crushing clay, laying stoves, and digging wells. They built a village and called it Polkovo, as a sign that a whole regiment built it and lived in it. Then, of course, liberation came, and the soldiers took root in this area and, almost all of them, stayed here. The area, as you can see, is fertile. There were those soldiers - grenadiers and giants - our ancestors. Our growth comes from them. If you don’t believe it, go to the city, to the museum. They will show you the papers there. Everything is spelled out in them. And just think: if only they could walk two more miles, they would come out to the river and stand there. But no, they didn’t dare disobey the order, they just stopped. People are still surprised. “Why are you,” they say, “regimental soldiers, running into the forest? Didn't you have a place by the river? “They’re scary,” they say, “they’re big guys, but apparently they don’t have enough guesses in their heads.” Well, you explain to them how it happened, then they agree. “You can’t argue against an order,” they say! It is a fact!"
Vasily Lyalin volunteered to take us to the forest and show us the path to Borovoe Lake. First we passed through a sandy field overgrown with immortelle and wormwood. Then thickets of young pines ran out to meet us. The pine forest greeted us with silence and coolness after the hot fields. High in the slanting rays of the sun, blue jays fluttered as if on fire. Clear puddles stood on the overgrown road, and clouds floated through these blue puddles. It smelled of strawberries and heated tree stumps. Drops of either dew or yesterday’s rain glistened on the leaves of the hazel tree. Cones fell loudly.
“Great forest!..” Lyalin sighed. “The wind will blow, and these pines will hum like bells.”
Then the pines gave way to birches, and water sparkled behind them.
- Borovoe? – I asked.
- No. It’s still a walk and a walk to get to Borovoye. This is Larino Lake. Let's go, look into the water, take a look.
The water in Larino Lake was deep and clear to the very bottom. Only near the shore she shuddered a little - there, from under the moss, a spring flowed into the lake. At the bottom lay several dark large trunks. They sparkled with a weak and dark fire when the sun reached them.
“Black oak,” said Lalin. - Stained, centuries-old. We pulled one out, but it’s difficult to work with. Breaks saws. But if you make a thing - a rolling pin or, say, a rocker - it will last forever! Heavy wood, sinks in water.
The sun shone in the dark water. Beneath it lay ancient oak trees, as if cast from black steel. And butterflies flew over the water, reflected in it with yellow and purple petals.
Lyalin led us onto a remote road.
“Step straight,” he showed, “until you run into mosshars, a dry swamp.” And along the moss there will be a path all the way to the lake. Just be careful - there are a lot of sticks there.
He said goodbye and left. Vanya and I walked along the forest road. The forest became higher, more mysterious and darker. Streams of golden resin froze on the pine trees.
At first, the ruts that had long ago been overgrown with grass were still visible, but then they disappeared, and the pink heather covered the entire road with a dry, cheerful carpet.
The road led us to a low cliff. Beneath it lay mosshars - thick birch and aspen undergrowth warmed to the roots. The trees grew from deep moss. Small yellow flowers were scattered across the moss here and there, and dry branches with white lichen were scattered around.
A narrow path led through the mshars. She avoided high hummocks. At the end of the path, the water glowed black and blue—Borovoe Lake.
We walked carefully along the mshars. Pegs, sharp as spears, stuck out from under the moss - the remains of birch and aspen trunks. Lingonberry thickets have begun. One cheek of each berry - the one turned to the south - was completely red, and the other was just beginning to turn pink. A heavy capercaillie jumped out from behind a hummock and ran into the small forest, breaking dry wood.
We went out to the lake. The grass stood waist-high along its banks. Water splashed in the roots of old trees. A wild duckling jumped out from under the roots and ran across the water with a desperate squeak.
The water in Borovoe was black and clean. Islands of white lilies bloomed on the water and smelled sweetly. The fish struck and the lilies swayed.
- What a blessing! - said Vanya. - Let's live here until our crackers run out.
I agreed.
We stayed at the lake for two days. We saw sunsets and twilight and a tangle of plants appearing before us in the light of the fire. We heard the cries of wild geese and the sounds of night rain. He walked for a short time, about an hour, and quietly rang across the lake, as if he was stretching thin, cobweb-like, trembling strings between the black sky and water.
That's all I wanted to tell you. But since then I will not believe anyone that there are boring places on our earth that do not provide any food for the eye, the ear, the imagination, or human thought.
Only in this way, by exploring some piece of our country, can you understand how good it is and how our hearts are attached to its every path, spring, and even to the timid squeaking of a forest bird.
Present
Every time autumn approached, conversations began that much in nature was not arranged the way we would like. Our winter is long and protracted, summer is much shorter than winter, and autumn passes instantly and leaves the impression of a golden bird flashing outside the window.
The forester’s grandson Vanya Malyavin, a boy of about fifteen, loved to listen to our conversations. He often came to our village from his grandfather’s lodge on Lake Urzhenskoye and brought either a bag of porcini mushrooms or a sieve of lingonberries, or he would just come running to stay with us, listen to conversations and read the magazine “Around the World”.
Thick bound volumes of this magazine lay in the closet along with oars, lanterns and an old beehive. The hive was painted with white glue paint. It fell off the dry wood in large pieces, and the wood under the paint smelled like old wax.
One day Vanya brought a small birch tree that had been dug up by the roots. He covered the roots with damp moss and wrapped them in matting.
“This is for you,” he said and blushed. - Present. Plant it in a wooden tub and place it in a warm room - it will be green all winter.
- Why did you dig it up, weirdo? – Reuben asked.
“You said that you feel sorry for summer,” Vanya answered. “My grandfather gave me the idea.” “Run,” he says, “to last year’s burnt area, there are two-year-old birches growing like grass, there is no way through them. Dig it up and take it to Rum Isaevich (that’s what my grandfather called Reuben). He worries about summer, so he will have a summer memory for the cold winter. It’s certainly fun to look at a green leaf when the snow is pouring out of a bag outside.”
“I not only regret summer, I regret autumn even more,” said Reuben and touched the thin leaves of the birch tree.
We brought a box from the barn, filled it to the top with earth and transplanted a small birch tree into it. The box was placed in the brightest and warmest room by the window, and a day later the drooping branches of the birch rose up, she was all cheerful, and even her leaves were already rustling when a draft wind rushed into the room and slammed the door in anger.
Autumn had already settled in the garden, but the leaves of our birch remained green and alive. The maples burned dark purple, the euonymus turned pink, and the wild grapes on the gazebo withered. Even here and there on the birch trees in the garden yellow strands appeared, like the first gray hair of an old man. But the birch tree in the room seemed to be getting younger. We did not notice any signs of fading in her.
One night the first frost came. He breathed cold air onto the windows in the house, and they fogged up; sprinkled grainy frost on the roofs and crunched underfoot. Only the stars seemed to rejoice at the first frost and sparkled much brighter than on warm summer nights. That night I woke up from a drawn-out and pleasant sound - a shepherd's horn sang in the dark. Outside the windows the dawn was barely noticeable blue.
I got dressed and went out into the garden. The sharp air washed my face with cold water - the dream immediately passed. Dawn was breaking. The blue in the east gave way to a crimson haze, similar to the smoke of a fire. This darkness brightened, became more and more transparent, through it distant and gentle lands of golden and pink clouds were already visible.
There was no wind, but the leaves kept falling and falling in the garden.
Over that one night, the birches turned yellow to the very tops, and the leaves fell from them in frequent and sad rain.
I returned to the rooms; they were warm and sleepy. In the pale light of dawn there was a small birch tree standing in a tub, and I suddenly noticed that almost all of it had turned yellow that night, and several lemon leaves were already lying on the floor.
Room warmth did not save the birch. A day later, she flew around all over, as if she did not want to lag behind her adult friends, who were crumbling in cold forests, groves, and spacious clearings damp in autumn.
Vanya Malyavin, Reuben and all of us were upset. We have already gotten used to the idea that on snowy winter days the birch tree will turn green in rooms illuminated by the white sun and the crimson flame of cheerful stoves. The last memory of summer has disappeared.
A forester I knew grinned when we told him about our attempt to save green foliage on a birch tree.
“It’s the law,” he said. - Law of nature. If the trees did not shed their leaves for the winter, they would die from many things: from the weight of the snow, which would grow on the leaves and break the thickest branches, and from the fact that by autumn a lot of salts harmful to the tree would accumulate in the foliage, and , finally, from the fact that the leaves would continue to evaporate moisture in the middle of winter, and the frozen ground would not give it to the roots of the tree, and the tree would inevitably die from winter drought, from thirst.
And grandfather Mitri, nicknamed Ten Percent, having learned about this little story with the birch tree, interpreted it in his own way.
“You, my dear,” he said to Reuben, “live with mine, then argue.” Otherwise, you keep arguing with me, but it’s clear that you haven’t had enough time to think through it yet. We, the old ones, are more capable of thinking, we have little to worry about - so we figure out what is what on earth and what its explanation is. Take, say, this birch tree. Don’t tell me about the forester, I know in advance everything he will say. The forester is a cunning guy; when he lived in Moscow, they say he cooked his food using electric current. Could this be or not?
“Maybe,” Reuben answered.
- “Maybe, maybe”! – his grandfather mimicked him. -Have you seen this electric current? How did you see him when he has no visibility, like air? Listen to the birch tree. Is there friendship between people or not? That's what it is. And people get carried away. They think that friendship is given to them alone, and they boast before every living creature. And friendship, brother, is all around, wherever you look. What can I say - a cow is friends with a cow, and a finch with a finch. Kill a crane, and the crane will wither away, cry, and won’t find a place for herself. And every grass and tree, too, must sometimes have friendship. How can your birch tree not fly around when all its companions in the forests have flown around? With what eyes will she look at them in the spring, what will she say when they have suffered in the winter, and she warmed herself by the stove, warm, well-fed, and clean? You also need to have a conscience.
“Well, grandfather, you screwed it up,” said Reuben. - You won't get along.
Grandfather chuckled.
- Weak? – he asked sarcastically. -Are you giving up? Don't get involved with me - it's useless.
Grandfather left, tapping his stick, very pleased, confident that he had won all of us in this argument and, along with us, the forester.
We planted a birch tree in the garden, under the fence, and collected its yellow leaves and dried them between the pages of “Around the World.”
Farewell to summer
For several days the cold rain poured incessantly. A wet wind rustled in the garden. At four o'clock in the afternoon we were already lighting the kerosene lamps, and it involuntarily seemed that summer was over forever and the earth was moving further and further into the dull fogs, into the uncomfortable darkness and cold.
It was the end of November - the saddest time in the village. The cat slept all day, curled up on an old chair, and shuddered in his sleep when dark rainwater poured into the windows.
The roads were washed away. The river carried yellowish foam, similar to a shot down squirrel. The last birds hid under the eaves, and for more than a week now no one has visited us - neither grandfather Mitriy, nor Vanya Malyavin, nor the forester.
It was best in the evenings. We lit the stoves. The fire was noisy, crimson reflections trembled on the log walls and on the old engraving - a portrait of the artist Bryullov. Leaning back in his chair, he looked at us and, it seemed, just like us, having put aside the open book, he was thinking about what he had read and listening to the hum of the rain on the plank roof.
The lamps burned brightly, and the disabled copper samovar sang and sang his simple song. As soon as he was brought into the room, it immediately became cozy - perhaps because the glass was fogged up and the lonely birch branch that knocked on the window day and night was not visible.
After tea we sat by the stove and read. On such evenings, the most pleasant thing was to read very long and touching novels by Charles Dickens or leaf through heavy volumes of magazines from old years.
At night, Funtik, a small red dachshund, often cried in his sleep. I had to get up and wrap him in a warm woolen rag. Funtik thanked him in his sleep, carefully licked his hand and, sighing, fell asleep. The darkness rustled behind the walls with the splash of rain and blows of the wind, and it was scary to think about those who might have been overtaken by this stormy night in the impenetrable forests.
One night I woke up with a strange sensation. It seemed to me that I had gone deaf in my sleep. I lay with my eyes closed, listened for a long time and finally realized that I was not deaf, but that there was simply an extraordinary silence outside the walls of the house. This kind of silence is called “dead”. The rain died, the wind died, the noisy, restless garden died, you could only hear the cat snoring in its sleep.
I opened my eyes. White and even light filled the room.
I got up and went to the window - everything was snowy and silent behind the glass. In the foggy sky, a lonely moon stood at a dizzying height, and a yellowish circle shimmered around it.
When did the first snow fall? I approached the walkers. It was so light that the arrows showed clearly. They showed two o'clock.
I fell asleep at midnight. This means that in two hours the earth changed so unusually, in two short hours the fields, forests and gardens were bewitched by the cold.
Through the window I saw a large gray bird land on a maple branch in the garden. The branch swayed and snow fell from it. The bird slowly rose and flew away, and the snow kept falling like glass rain falling from a Christmas tree. Then everything became quiet again.
Reuben woke up. He looked outside the window for a long time, sighed and said:
– The first snow suits the earth very well.
The earth was elegant, looking like a shy bride.
And in the morning everything crunched around: frozen roads, leaves on the porch, black nettle stems sticking out from under the snow.
Grandfather Mitri came to visit for tea and congratulated him on his first trip.
“So the earth was washed,” he said, “with snow water from a silver trough.”
– Where did you get this, Mitri, such words? – Reuben asked.
- Is there anything wrong? – the grandfather grinned. “My deceased mother told me that in ancient times, beauties washed themselves with the first snow from a silver jug and therefore their beauty never faded. This happened even before Tsar Peter, my dear, when robbers ruined merchants in the local forests.
It was difficult to stay at home on the first winter day.
We went to the forest lakes. Grandfather walked us to the edge of the forest. He also wanted to visit the lakes, but “the ache in his bones did not let him go.”
It was solemn, light and quiet in the forests.
The day seemed to be dozing. Lonely snowflakes occasionally fell from the cloudy high sky. We carefully breathed on them, and they turned into pure drops of water, then became cloudy, froze and rolled to the ground like beads.
We wandered through the forests until dusk, going around familiar places.
Flocks of bullfinches sat, ruffled, on rowan trees covered with snow.
We picked several bunches of red rowan, caught by the frost - this was the last memory of summer, of autumn.
On the small lake - it was called Larin's Pond - there was always a lot of duckweed floating around. Now the water in the lake was very black and transparent - all the duckweed had sank to the bottom by winter.
A glass strip of ice has grown along the coast. The ice was so transparent that even close up it was difficult to notice. I saw a flock of rafts in the water near the shore and threw a small stone at them. The stone fell on the ice, the ice rang, the rafts, flashing with scales, darted into the depths, and a white grainy trace of the impact remained on the ice. That’s the only reason we guessed that a layer of ice had already formed near the shore. We broke off individual pieces of ice with our hands. They crunched and left a mixed smell of snow and lingonberries on your fingers.
Here and there in the clearings birds flew and squealed pitifully. The sky overhead was very light, white, and towards the horizon it thickened, and its color resembled lead. Slow snow clouds were coming from there.
The forests became increasingly gloomy, quieter, and finally thick snow began to fall. It melted in the black water of the lake, tickled my face, and powdered the forest with gray smoke.
Winter began to rule the earth, but we knew that under the loose snow, if you rake it with your hands, you could still find fresh forest flowers, we knew that the fire would always crackle in the stoves, that tits remained with us to winter, and winter seemed the same to us beautiful like summer.
Everyone, even the most serious person, not to mention, of course, the boys, has his own secret and slightly funny dream. I had the same dream - to definitely get to Borovoe Lake.
From the village where I lived that summer, the lake was only twenty kilometers away. Everyone tried to dissuade me from going - the road was boring, and the lake was like a lake, all around there were forests, dry swamps and lingonberries. The picture is famous!
Why are you rushing there, to this lake! - the garden watchman Semyon was angry. - What didn’t you see? What a fussy, quick-witted bunch of people, oh my God! You see, he needs to touch everything with his own hand, look out with his own eye! What will you look for there? One pond. And nothing more!
Were you there?
Why did he surrender to me, this lake! I don't have anything else to do, or what? This is where they sit, all my business! - Semyon tapped his brown neck with his fist. - On the hill!
But I still went to the lake. Two village boys stuck with me - Lenka and Vanya. Before we had time to leave the outskirts, the complete hostility of the characters of Lenka and Vanya was immediately revealed. Lenka valued everything he saw around him in rubles.
“Look,” he told me in his booming voice, “the gander is coming.” How long do you think he can handle?
How do I know!
“It’s probably worth a hundred rubles,” Lenka said dreamily and immediately asked: “But how much will this pine tree last?” Two hundred rubles? Or for all three hundred?
Accountant! - Vanya remarked contemptuously and sniffed. - He himself has brains worth a dime, but he asks prices for everything. My eyes would not look at him.
After that, Lenka and Vanya stopped, and I heard a well-known conversation - a harbinger of a fight. It consisted, as is customary, only of questions and exclamations.
Whose brains are they asking for a dime? My?
Probably not mine!
Look!
See for yourself!
Don't grab it! The cap was not sewn for you!
Oh, I wish I could push you in my own way!
Don't scare me! Don't poke me in the nose!
The fight was short, but decisive, Lenka picked up his cap, spat and went, offended, back to the village.
I began to shame Vanya.
Of course! - said Vanya, embarrassed. - I got into a fight in the heat of the moment. Everyone is fighting with him, with Lenka. He's kind of boring! Give him free rein, he will put prices on everything, like in a general store. For every spikelet. And he will certainly clear the entire forest and chop it down for firewood. And I’m afraid more than anything in the world when the forest is being cleared. I'm so afraid of passion!
Why so?
Oxygen from forests. The forests will be cut down, the oxygen will become liquid and smelly. And the earth will no longer be able to attract him, to keep him close to him. Where will he fly? - Vanya pointed to the fresh morning sky. - The person will have nothing to breathe. The forester explained it to me.
We climbed the slope and entered an oak copse. Immediately red ants began to eat us. They stuck to my legs and fell from the branches by the collar. Dozens of ant roads, covered with sand, stretched between oaks and junipers. Sometimes such a road passed, as if through a tunnel, under the gnarled roots of an oak tree and rose again to the surface. Ant traffic on these roads was continuous. The ants fled in one direction empty, and returned with goods - white grains, dry beetle legs, dead wasps and a furry caterpillar.
Bustle! - Vanya said. - Like in Moscow. An old man comes to this forest from Moscow to collect ant eggs. Every year. They take it away in bags. This is the best bird food. And they are good for fishing. You need a tiny little hook!
Behind an oak copse, on the edge of a loose sandy road, stood a lopsided cross with a black tin icon. Red ladybugs with white speckles were crawling along the cross. A quiet wind blew in my face from the oat fields. The oats rustled, bent, and a gray wave ran over them.
Beyond the oat field we passed through the village of Polkovo. I have long noticed that almost all of the regiment’s peasants differ from the surrounding residents in their tall stature.
Stately people in Polkovo! - our Zaborevskys said with envy. - Grenadiers! Drummers!
In Polkovo we went to rest in the hut of Vasily Lyalin, a tall, handsome old man with a piebald beard. Gray strands stuck out in disarray in his black shaggy hair.
When we entered Lyalin’s hut, he shouted:
Keep your heads down! Heads! Everyone is smashing my forehead against the lintel! The people in Polkov are painfully tall, but they are slow-witted - they build huts according to their short stature.
While talking with Lyalin, I finally learned why the regimental peasants were so tall.
Story! - said Lyalin. - Do you think we went so high in vain? Even the little bug doesn’t live in vain. It also has its purpose.
Vanya laughed.
Wait until you laugh! - Lyalin remarked sternly. - I’m not yet learned enough to laugh. You listen. Was there such a foolish tsar in Russia - Emperor Paul? Or wasn't it?
“Yes,” Vanya said. - We studied.
Was and floated away. And he did such a lot of things that we still have hiccups to this day. The gentleman was fierce. A soldier at the parade squinted his eyes in the wrong direction - he now gets excited and begins to thunder: “To Siberia! To hard labor! Three hundred ramrods!” This is what the king was like! Well, what happened was that the grenadier regiment did not please him. He shouts: “March in the indicated direction for a thousand miles!” Let's go! And after a thousand miles we stop for an eternal rest!” And he points in the direction with his finger. Well, the regiment, of course, turned and walked. What are you going to do? We walked and walked for three months and reached this place. The forest all around is impassable. One wild. They stopped and began cutting down huts, crushing clay, laying stoves, and digging wells. They built a village and called it Polkovo, as a sign that a whole regiment built it and lived in it. Then, of course, liberation came, and the soldiers took root in this area, and, almost, everyone stayed here. The area, as you can see, is fertile. There were those soldiers - grenadiers and giants - our ancestors. Our growth comes from them. If you don’t believe it, go to the city, to the museum. They will show you the papers there. Everything is spelled out in them. And just think, if only they could walk two more miles and come out to the river, they would stop there. But no, they didn’t dare disobey the order, they definitely stopped. People are still surprised. “Why are you guys from the regiment, they say, running into the forest? Didn't you have a place by the river? They say they are scary, big guys, but apparently they don’t have enough guesses in their heads.” Well, you explain to them how it happened, then they agree. “They say you can’t go against an order! It is a fact!"
Vasily Lyalin volunteered to take us to the forest and show us the path to Borovoe Lake. First we passed through a sandy field overgrown with immortelle and wormwood. Then thickets of young pines ran out to meet us. The pine forest greeted us with silence and coolness after the hot fields. High in the slanting rays of the sun, blue jays fluttered as if on fire. Clear puddles stood on the overgrown road, and clouds floated through these blue puddles. It smelled of strawberries and heated tree stumps. Drops of either dew or yesterday’s rain glistened on the leaves of the hazel tree. Cones fell loudly.
Great forest! - Lyalin sighed. - The wind will blow, and these pines will hum like bells.
Then the pines gave way to birches, and behind them the water sparkled.
Borovoe? - I asked.
No. It’s still a walk and a walk to get to Borovoye. This is Larino Lake. Let's go, look into the water, take a look.
The water in Larino Lake was deep and clear to the very bottom. Only near the shore she shuddered a little - there, from under the moss, a spring flowed into the lake. At the bottom lay several dark large trunks. They sparkled with a weak and dark fire when the sun reached them.
Black oak,” said Lyalin. - Stained, centuries-old. We pulled one out, but it’s difficult to work with. Breaks saws. But if you make a thing - a rolling pin or, say, a rocker - it will last forever! Heavy wood, sinks in water.
The sun shone in the dark water. Beneath it lay ancient oak trees, as if cast from black steel. And butterflies flew over the water, reflected in it with yellow and purple petals.
Lyalin led us onto a remote road.
“Step straight,” he showed, “until you run into mosslands, a dry swamp.” And along the mosshars there will be a path all the way to the lake. Just be careful, there are a lot of sticks there.
He said goodbye and left. Vanya and I walked along the forest road. The forest became higher, more mysterious and darker. Streams of golden resin froze on the pine trees.
At first, the ruts that had long ago been overgrown with grass were still visible, but then they disappeared, and the pink heather covered the entire road with a dry, cheerful carpet.
The road led us to a low cliff. Beneath it lay mosshars - thick birch and aspen forests heated to the roots. The trees grew from deep moss. Small yellow flowers were scattered here and there on the moss and dry branches with white lichens were scattered.
A narrow path led through the mshars. She avoided high hummocks. At the end of the path, the water glowed black blue - Borovoe Lake.
We walked carefully along the mshars. Pegs, sharp as spears, stuck out from under the moss - the remains of birch and aspen trunks. Lingonberry thickets have begun. One cheek of each berry - the one turned to the south - was completely red, and the other was just beginning to turn pink. A heavy capercaillie jumped out from behind a hummock and ran into the small forest, breaking dry wood.
We went out to the lake. The grass stood waist-high along its banks. Water splashed in the roots of old trees. A wild duckling jumped out from under the roots and ran across the water with a desperate squeak.
The water in Borovoye was black and clean. Islands of white lilies bloomed on the water and smelled sweetly. The fish struck and the lilies swayed.
What a blessing! - Vanya said. - Let's live here until our crackers run out.
I agreed. We stayed at the lake for two days. We saw sunsets and twilight and a tangle of plants appearing before us in the light of the fire. We heard the cries of wild geese and the sounds of night rain. He walked for a short time, about an hour, and quietly rang across the lake, as if he was stretching thin, cobweb-like, trembling strings between the black sky and water.
That's all I wanted to tell you. But since then I will not believe anyone that there are boring places on our earth that do not provide any food for the eye, the ear, the imagination, or human thought.
Only in this way, by exploring some piece of our country, can you understand how good it is and how our hearts are attached to its every path, spring, and even to the timid squeaking of a forest bird.
Every inhabitant of our planet has an unusual desire. And I keep in my heart the idea of visiting the lake expanses called “Borovoye”. The distance between the village and the lake was twenty kilometers.
Garden guard - Semyon didn’t like my dream.
But, I still went on the road and two guys went with me. One of them transferred everything into money. Even his wood had a price. As a result, a conflict occurred, and Lyonka went home.
After scolding Vanya, I received the answer that all the guys didn’t like him because of the calculations.
A picture opened up to us: the movement of ants. Moreover, they rushed in one direction empty, and back with dry wasps and various insects.
note
On the way we visited an old man. There were gray patches of hair visible in his partially black hair.
At the entrance, he shouted to lower our heads, otherwise we would hit the top board.
He told us about the tricks of the cruel Tsar Paul.
He sent the squad he didn’t like thousands of kilometers away. We arrived in three months. And they began to make houses from felled logs and coat them with raw clay. They were all tall and strong heroes.
And this Vasily decided to show the way to the lake of my dreams. We passed a pine forest, then a birch grove.
The reflection of the sun was visible in the dark water. Reflections reflected on the surface of the water.
Along a narrow path we approached our cherished goal. We stayed here for two days. Since that time, I believe that every natural corner is interesting and beautiful in its own way.
Exploring every piece of our Motherland, you can feel heartfelt affection and awe for your native spaces, even a small bird is part of the warmth in your heart.
By studying fiction about natural mysteries, customs and established traditions, we are getting closer to a piece of our native country. We must not forget the history of our ancestors.
Love reading, which fills us with light and warmth and helps us avoid many mistakes in life.
You can use this text for a reader's diary
- Brief summary of Tendryakov Spring shifters
The main character of the story “Spring Changelings” V.F. Tendryakova named Dyushka Tyagunov lived in the village of Kudelino. The boy is thirteen years old, lives with his mother, who works as a doctor and often works night shifts. - Summary Turgenev Forest and steppe
“Forest and Steppe” is a picture full of romance and beauty, written by the Russian classic Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev. He believes that hunters, among whom he counts himself, have the most keen eye for the charm of nature. - Summary of Karl Marx Capital
Capital by Karl Marx is a work that describes the economic relations of capitalist society, revealing the concepts and laws of its existence - Brief summary Prishvin Birch bark tube
The story talks about a birch bark tube in which the author found a nut. At first he thought it was a squirrel. - Summary of Leskov Musk Ox
A sad story about a man who could not find his place in life, which ultimately ended in personal tragedy.
What is beauty? Excerpt from the story by K.G. Paustovsky
(1) Everyone, even the most serious person, not to mention, of course, boys, has his own secret and slightly funny dream. (2) I had the same dream - to definitely get to Borovoe Lake.
(3) From the village where I lived that summer, the lake was only twenty kilometers.
(4) Everyone dissuaded me from going - the road is boring, and the lake is like a lake, all around there is only forest, dry swamps and lingonberries. (5) The painting is famous!
(6) - Why are you rushing there, to this lake! - the garden watchman Semyon was angry.
(7) - What didn’t you see? (8) What a fussy, grasping people, my God! (9) You see, he needs to touch everything with his own hand, look out with his own eye! (10) What will you look for there? (11) One body of water. (12) And nothing more!
(13) But I still went to the lake. (14) Two village boys stuck with me - Lyonka and Vanya.
(15) We climbed the slope and entered the oak copse. (16) Immediately red ants began to eat us. (17) They stuck to my legs and fell from the branches by the collar. (18) Dozens of ant roads, sprinkled with sand, stretched between oaks and junipers. (19) Sometimes such a road passed, as if through a tunnel, under the gnarled roots of an oak tree and again rose to the surface.
(20) Ant movement on these roads was continuous. (21) The ants fled in one direction empty, and returned with goods - white grains, dry beetle legs, dead wasps and a furry caterpillar.
(22) - Vanity! - Vanya said. (23) - Like in Moscow.
(24) First we passed through a sandy field overgrown with immortelle and wormwood.
(25) Then thickets of young pine trees ran out to meet us. (26) High in the slanting rays of the sun, blue jays fluttered as if on fire. (27) Clear puddles stood on the overgrown road, and clouds floated through these blue puddles.
(28) - This is a forest! - Lenka sighed. (29) - The wind will blow, and these pines will hum like bells.
(30) Then the pines gave way to birches, and water flashed behind them.
(31) - Borovoe? - I asked.
(32) - No. (33) It’s still a walk and a walk to get to Borovoye. (34) This is Larino Lake. (35) Let's go, look into the water, take in your eyes.
(36) The sun shone in the dark water.
(37) Beneath it lay ancient oak trees, as if cast from black steel, and butterflies were flying above the water, reflected in it with yellow and purple petals...
(38) From the lake we went out onto a forest road, which led us to birch and aspen small forests warmed to the roots. (39) The trees grew from deep moss.
(40) A narrow path led through the swamp, it went around high hummocks, and at the end of the path the water glowed black and blue - Borovoe Lake. (41) A heavy capercaillie jumped out from behind a hummock and ran into the small forest, breaking dry wood.
(42) We went to the lake. (43) Grass above the waist stood along its banks. (44) Water splashed in the roots of old trees.
(45) Islands of white lilies bloomed on the water and smelled sweetly. (46) The fish struck and the lilies swayed.
(47) – What a beauty! - said Vanya. (48) – Let’s live here until our crackers run out.
(49) I agreed.
(50) We stayed on the lake for two days: we saw sunsets and twilight and the tangle of plants that appeared in front of us in the light of the fire, we heard the cries of wild geese and the sounds of night rain. (51) He walked for a short time, about an hour, and quietly rang across the lake, as if he was stretching thin, cobweb-like, trembling strings between the black sky and water.
(52) That's all I wanted to tell you. (53) But since then I will not believe anyone that there are boring places on our earth that do not provide any food for the eye, the ear, the imagination, or human thought.
(54) Only in this way, exploring some piece of our country, can you understand how good it is and how our hearts are attached to its every path, spring, and even to the timid squeaking of a forest bird.
Go to essay-reasoning
Go to other essays on tasks 15.2 and 15.3
Elimination of illiteracy plus...
Literature is news that never gets old
(Ezra Pound)
Paustovsky's stories summary for children
The work tells how a boy gave the author a birch tree. The boy knew that the author was very homesick for the passing summer. He hoped that a birch tree could be planted at home. There she would delight the author with her green foliage and remind her of summer.
The story teaches its readers kindness, as well as the importance of helping people around them. Especially if a person is sad or has experienced misfortune, then you definitely need to support him.
Everyone around was very surprised at this, because the tree grew in the house, and not on the street.
Later, the neighbor's grandfather came and explained everything. He said that the tree lost its leaves because he was ashamed in front of all his friends. After all, the birch tree had to spend the entire cold winter in warmth and comfort, and its friends had to spend it outside, where it was frosty. Many people need to take an example from this very birch tree.
Picture or drawing Gift
Pechorin is a very mysterious nature, who can be impetuous or coldly calculating. But it is far from simple, but in this case - in Taman, he was fooled. It is there that Pechorin stops at the house of an old woman
The pig, under a huge oak tree that was hundreds of years old, ate plenty of acorns. After such a good and satisfying lunch, she fell asleep, right under the same tree.
The Savin family lives in Moscow in an old apartment. Mother - Klavdia Vasilievna, Fyodor - eldest son, defended his Ph.D., got married.
The main hero of the novel is Fyodor Ivanovich Dezhkin. He comes to the city in order to check the work of the department’s employees with his colleague, Vasily Stepanovich Tsvyakh. They were also both ordered to check information about illegal and prohibited activities of students
Summary of Paustovsky Collection of miracles for a reader's diary
Their path lies through a field and the village of Polkovo with surprisingly tall peasants, grenadiers, through a mossy forest, through a swamp and groves.
Local residents do not see anything special in this lake and discourage people from going to it; they are accustomed to the local boring places and do not see any miracles in them.
Only those who are truly attached to its beauty and see beauty in every corner of their country can see the wonders in nature. Our hero's old secret boyhood dream is coming true - to get to Borovoe Lake.
Paustovsky. Brief summaries of works
Picture or drawing Collection of miracles
Other retellings for the reader's diary
The Opera, which tells the story of Simon Boccanegra, has a prologue and three acts. The main character is a plebeian and Doge of Genoa. The plot takes place in Genoa, in a house that belongs to Grimaldi. Within the framework of general history, it is now the 14th century.
The story of The Thieving Magpie begins with a conversation between three young people about the theater and the role of women in it. But it only seems that they are talking about the theater, but in fact they are talking about traditions, women and family structures in different countries
The hero of the story, the boy Yura, was five years old at that time. He lived in a village. One day Yura and his mother went into the forest to pick berries. At that time it was strawberry season.
Watercolor paints
Badger nose
White rainbow
dense bear
yellow light
Residents of the old house
caring flower
Hare's feet
Golden Rose
Golden tench
Isaac Levitan
Lump sugar
Basket with fir cones
Thief cat
Meshcherskaya side
Tale of life
Farewell to summer
River floods
Disheveled Sparrow
Birth of a story
Creaky floorboards
Collection of miracles
In the story by K.G. Paustovsky's hero goes on a journey to Lake Borovoe along with the village boy Vanya, a zealous defender of the forest.
Steel ring
old cook
Telegram
Warm bread
The work of Konstantin Georgievich Paustovsky is notable for the fact that it incorporates a large amount of life experience, which the writer diligently accumulated over the years, traveling and covering various fields of activity.
Paustovsky's first works, which he wrote while still studying at the gymnasium, were published in various magazines.
“Romantics” is the writer’s first novel, work on which lasted for 7 long years. According to Paustovsky himself, a characteristic feature of his prose was precisely its romantic orientation.
The story “Kara-Bugaz”, published in 1932, brought real fame to Konstantin Georgievich. The success of the work was stunning, which the author himself did not even realize for some time. It was this work, as critics believed, that allowed Paustovsky to become one of the leading Soviet writers of that time.
note
However, Paustovsky considered his main work to be the autobiographical “Tale of Life,” which includes six books, each of which is associated with a certain stage of the author’s life.
Fairy tales and stories written for children also occupy an important place in the writer’s bibliography. Each of the works teaches the good and bright that a person so needs in adult life.
Paustovsky’s contribution to literature is difficult to overestimate, because he wrote not only for people, but also about people: artists and painters, poets and writers. We can safely say that this talented man left behind a rich literary heritage.
Paustovsky's stories
Read online. Alphabetical list with summary and illustrations
Warm bread
One day, cavalrymen passed through the village and left a black horse wounded in the leg. Miller Pankrat cured the horse, and he began to help him. But it was difficult for the miller to feed the horse, so the horse sometimes went to village houses, where he was treated to some tops, some bread, and some sweet carrots.
In the village there lived a boy, Filka, nicknamed “Well, you,” because it was his favorite expression. One day the horse came to Filka's house, hoping that the boy would give him something to eat. But Filka came out of the gate and threw the bread into the snow, shouting curses. This offended the horse very much, he reared up and at the same moment a strong snowstorm began. Filka barely found his way to the door of the house.
And at home the grandmother, crying, told him that now they would face starvation, because the river that turned the mill wheel had frozen and now it would be impossible to make flour from grain to bake bread. And there were only 2-3 days of flour left in the entire village.
The grandmother also told Filka a story that something similar had already happened in their village about 100 years ago.
Then one greedy man spared bread for a disabled soldier and threw him a moldy crust on the ground, although it was difficult for the soldier to bend over - he had a wooden leg.
Filka was scared, but the grandmother said that the miller Pankrat knows how a greedy person can correct his mistake. At night, Filka ran to the miller Pankrat and told him how he had offended his horse. Pankrat said that her mistake could be corrected and gave Filka 1 hour and 15 minutes to figure out how to save the village from the cold. The magpie who lived with Pankrat overheard everything, then got out of the house and flew south.
Filka came up with the idea of asking all the boys in the village to help him break the ice on the river with crowbars and shovels. And the next morning the whole village came out to fight the elements.
They lit fires and broke the ice with crowbars, axes and shovels. By lunchtime a warm southerly wind blew in from the south. And by evening the guys broke through the ice and the river flowed into the mill chute, turning the wheel and millstones.
The mill began to grind flour, and the women began to fill bags with it.
In the evening the magpie returned and began to tell everyone that it had flown south and asked the south wind to spare people and help them melt the ice. But no one believed her. That evening the women kneaded sweet dough and baked fresh warm bread; throughout the village there was such a smell of bread that all the foxes got out of their holes and thought about how they could get at least a crust of warm bread.
And in the morning, Filka took the warm bread and the other guys and went to the mill to treat the horse and apologize to him for his greed. Pankrat released the horse, but at first he did not eat the bread from Filka’s hands. Then Pankrat talked to the horse and asked him to forgive Filka. The horse listened to his master and ate the entire loaf of warm bread, and then laid his head on Filke’s shoulder. Everyone immediately began to rejoice and be happy that the warm bread reconciled Filka and the horse.
Read
Konstantin Georgievich Paustovsky
Collected Works in eight volumes
Volume 7. Plays, stories, fairy tales 1941-1966
Lieutenant Lermontov
[text missing]
Ring
[text missing]
Our contemporary
[text missing]
Stories
Traveling on an old camel
[text missing]
English razor
It rained all night, mixed with snow. The north wind whistled through the rotten stalks of corn. The Germans were silent. From time to time our fighter, standing at the beret, fired his guns towards Mariupol. Then black thunder shook the steppe. The shells rushed into the darkness with such a ringing sound, as if they were tearing apart a piece of stretched canvas above your head,
At dawn, two soldiers, wearing helmets shiny from the rain, brought a short old man to the adobe hut where the major lived. His wet checkered jacket stuck to his body. Huge lumps of clay were dragging on their feet.
The soldiers silently put a passport, a razor and a shaving brush on the table in front of the major - everything that they found during the search of the old man - and reported that he had been detained in a ravine near a well.
The old man was interrogated. He called himself the hairdresser of the Mariupol theater, the Armenian Avetis, and told a story, which was then passed on for a long time to all neighboring parts.
The hairdresser did not have time to escape from Mariulol before the Germans arrived. He hid in the basement of the theater with two little boys, the sons of his Jewish neighbor. The day before, the neighbor went into town to buy bread and did not return. She must have been killed during an aerial bombardment.
The hairdresser spent more than a day in the basement with the boys. The children sat huddled close to each other, did not sleep and listened all the time. At night, the younger boy cried loudly. The barber shouted at him. The boy fell silent.
Then the hairdresser took a bottle of warm water from his jacket pocket. He wanted to give the boy something to drink, but he didn’t drink and turned away. The barber took him by the chin—the boy’s face was hot and wet—and forced him to drink.
The boy drank loudly, convulsively, and swallowed his own tears along with the muddy water.
On the second day, a German corporal and two soldiers pulled the children and the hairdresser out of the basement and brought them to their superior, Lieutenant Friedrich Kohlberg.
The lieutenant lived in an abandoned dentist's apartment. The torn out window frames were stuffed with plywood. It was dark and cold in the apartment; there was an ice storm over the Sea of Azov.
What kind of performance is this?
Three, Mister Lieutenant! - the corporal reported.
“Why lie,” the lieutenant said softly. - The boys are Jews, but this old freak is a typical Greek, a great descendant of the Hellenes, a Peloponnesian monkey. I'm going to bet. How! You are Armenian? How can you prove this to me, rotten beef?
The hairdresser remained silent. The lieutenant pushed the last piece of the golden frame into the stove with the toe of his boot and ordered the prisoners to be taken to a nearby empty apartment. In the evening, the lieutenant came to this apartment with his friend, the fat pilot Early. They brought two large bottles wrapped in paper.
Razor with you? - the lieutenant asked the hairdresser. - Yes? Then shave the heads of the Jewish cupids!
Why is this, Free? - the pilot asked lazily.
Beautiful children,” said the lieutenant. - Is not it? I want. spoil them a little. Then we will feel sorry for them less.
The barber shaved the boys. They cried with their heads down, and the hairdresser grinned. Always, if misfortune happened to him, he smiled wryly. This grin deceived Kolberg - the lieutenant decided that his innocent fun was amusing the old Armenian. The lieutenant sat the boys down at the table, uncorked the bottle and poured four full glasses of vodka.
“I’m not treating you, Achilles,” he told the barber. -You'll have to shave me this evening. I'm going to visit your beauties.
The lieutenant unclenched the boys' teeth and poured a full glass of vodka into each of their mouths. The boys winced, gasped, tears flowed from their eyes. Kohlberg clinked glasses with the pilot, drank his glass and said:
I've always been for gentle ways, Early.
It’s not for nothing that you bear the name of our good Schiller,” the pilot answered. - They will now dance mayufes at your place.
The lieutenant poured a second glass of vodka into the children’s mouths. They fought back, but the lieutenant and the pilot squeezed their hands, poured the vodka slowly, making sure that the boys drank it to the end, and shouted: -
So! So! Tasty? Well again! Perfect! The younger boy started vomiting. His eyes turned red. He slid off the chair and lay down on the floor. The pilot took him under the arms, lifted him, sat him on a chair and poured another glass of vodka into his mouth. Then the older boy screamed for the first time. He screamed piercingly and without looking away looked at the lieutenant with eyes round in horror.
Shut up, cantor! - the lieutenant shouted. He tilted the older boy's head back and poured vodka into his mouth straight from the bottle. The boy fell from his chair and crawled towards the wall. He looked for the door, but apparently went blind, hit his head on the doorframe, groaned and fell silent.
By nightfall,” said the barber, gasping for breath, “they both died.” They lay small and black, as if they had been burned by lightning.
Further? - asked the hairdresser. - Well, as you wish. The lieutenant ordered me to shave it. He was drunk. Otherwise he would not have dared to do this stupidity. The pilot left. We went with the lieutenant to his flooded apartment. He sat down at the dressing table.
I lit a candle in an iron candlestick, heated water in the stove and began to soap his cheeks. I placed the candlestick on a chair near the dressing table. You must have seen such candlesticks: a woman with flowing hair holds a lily, and a candle is inserted into the cup of the lily. I poked the brush with soap suds into the lieutenant's eyes.
He shouted, but I managed to hit him with all my might on the temple with an iron candlestick.
On the spot? - asked the major.
Yes. Then I made my way to you for two days, Major looked at the razor.
“I know why you are looking,” said the hairdresser. “You think I should have used the razor.” That would be more correct. But, you know, I felt sorry for her. This is an old English razor. I've been working with her for ten years.
The major stood up and extended his hand to the barber.
Feed this man, he said. - And give him dry clothes.
The hairdresser left. The soldiers took him to the field kitchen.
“Eh, brother,” said one of the fighters and put his hand on the hairdresser’s shoulder. - Tears weaken the heart. Moreover, the sight is not visible. To kill them all to the last, you need to have a dry eye. Am I right?
The hairdresser nodded in agreement.
The fighter fired his guns. The lead water shuddered and turned black, but immediately the color of the reflected sky returned to it - greenish and foggy.
Timid heart
Varvara Yakovlevna, a medical assistant at a tuberculosis sanatorium, was shy not only in front of professors, but even in front of patients. Almost all of the patients were from Moscow - a demanding and restless people. They were irritated by the heat, the dusty garden of the sanatorium, the medical procedures - in a word, everything.
Because of her timidity, Varvara Yakovlevna, as soon as she retired, immediately moved to the outskirts of the city, to Quarantine.
note
She bought a house there under a tiled roof and hid in it from the diversity and noise of the seaside streets.
God be with him, with this southern revival, with the hoarse music of loudspeakers, restaurants smelling of burnt lamb, buses, the crackling of pebbles on the boulevard under the feet of walkers.
In Quarantine, all the houses were very clean and quiet, and the gardens smelled of heated tomato leaves and wormwood. Wormwood even grew on the ancient Genoese wall that surrounded Quarantine. Through a hole in the wall one could see the muddy green sea and rocks.
The old, always unshaven Greek Spiro was fiddling around them all day, catching shrimp with a wicker basket. He climbed into the water without undressing, fumbled under the stones, then went ashore, sat down to rest, and sea water flowed from his old jacket in streams.
Everyone, even the most serious person, not to mention, of course, the boys, has his own secret and slightly funny dream. I had the same dream - to definitely get to Borovoe Lake.
From the village where I lived that summer, the lake was only twenty kilometers away. Everyone tried to dissuade me from going - the road was boring, and the lake was like a lake, all around there were forests, dry swamps and lingonberries. The picture is famous!
Why are you rushing there, to this lake! - the garden watchman Semyon was angry. - What didn’t you see? What a fussy, quick-witted bunch of people, oh my God! You see, he needs to touch everything with his own hand, look out with his own eye! What will you look for there? One pond. And nothing more!
Were you there?
Why did he surrender to me, this lake! I don't have anything else to do, or what? This is where they sit, all my business! - Semyon tapped his brown neck with his fist. - On the hill!
But I still went to the lake. Two village boys stuck with me - Lenka and Vanya. Before we had time to leave the outskirts, the complete hostility of the characters of Lenka and Vanya was immediately revealed. Lenka valued everything he saw around him in rubles.
“Look,” he told me in his booming voice, “the gander is coming.” How long do you think he can handle?
How do I know!
“It’s probably worth a hundred rubles,” Lenka said dreamily and immediately asked: “But how much will this pine tree last?” Two hundred rubles? Or for all three hundred?
Accountant! - Vanya remarked contemptuously and sniffed. - He himself has brains worth a dime, but he asks prices for everything. My eyes would not look at him.
After that, Lenka and Vanya stopped, and I heard a well-known conversation - a harbinger of a fight. It consisted, as is customary, only of questions and exclamations.
Whose brains are they asking for a dime? My?
Probably not mine!
Look!
See for yourself!
Don't grab it! The cap was not sewn for you!
Oh, I wish I could push you in my own way!
Don't scare me! Don't poke me in the nose!
The fight was short, but decisive, Lenka picked up his cap, spat and went, offended, back to the village.
I began to shame Vanya.
Of course! - said Vanya, embarrassed. - I got into a fight in the heat of the moment. Everyone is fighting with him, with Lenka. He's kind of boring! Give him free rein, he will put prices on everything, like in a general store. For every spikelet. And he will certainly clear the entire forest and chop it down for firewood. And I’m afraid more than anything in the world when the forest is being cleared. I'm so afraid of passion!
Why so?
Oxygen from forests. The forests will be cut down, the oxygen will become liquid and smelly. And the earth will no longer be able to attract him, to keep him close to him. Where will he fly? - Vanya pointed to the fresh morning sky. - The person will have nothing to breathe. The forester explained it to me.
We climbed the slope and entered an oak copse. Immediately red ants began to eat us. They stuck to my legs and fell from the branches by the collar. Dozens of ant roads, covered with sand, stretched between oaks and junipers. Sometimes such a road passed, as if through a tunnel, under the gnarled roots of an oak tree and rose again to the surface. Ant traffic on these roads was continuous. The ants fled in one direction empty, and returned with goods - white grains, dry beetle legs, dead wasps and a furry caterpillar.
Bustle! - Vanya said. - Like in Moscow. An old man comes to this forest from Moscow to collect ant eggs. Every year. They take it away in bags. This is the best bird food. And they are good for fishing. You need a tiny little hook!
Behind an oak copse, on the edge of a loose sandy road, stood a lopsided cross with a black tin icon. Red ladybugs with white speckles were crawling along the cross. A quiet wind blew in my face from the oat fields. The oats rustled, bent, and a gray wave ran over them.
Beyond the oat field we passed through the village of Polkovo. I have long noticed that almost all of the regiment’s peasants differ from the surrounding residents in their tall stature.
Stately people in Polkovo! - our Zaborevskys said with envy. - Grenadiers! Drummers!
In Polkovo we went to rest in the hut of Vasily Lyalin, a tall, handsome old man with a piebald beard. Gray strands stuck out in disarray in his black shaggy hair.
When we entered Lyalin’s hut, he shouted:
Keep your heads down! Heads! Everyone is smashing my forehead against the lintel! The people in Polkov are painfully tall, but they are slow-witted - they build huts according to their short stature.
While talking with Lyalin, I finally learned why the regimental peasants were so tall.
Story! - said Lyalin. - Do you think we went so high in vain? Even the little bug doesn’t live in vain. It also has its purpose.
Vanya laughed.
Wait until you laugh! - Lyalin remarked sternly. - I’m not yet learned enough to laugh. You listen. Was there such a foolish tsar in Russia - Emperor Paul? Or wasn't it?
“Yes,” Vanya said. - We studied.
Was and floated away. And he did such a lot of things that we still have hiccups to this day. The gentleman was fierce. A soldier at the parade squinted his eyes in the wrong direction - he now gets excited and begins to thunder: “To Siberia! To hard labor! Three hundred ramrods!” This is what the king was like! Well, what happened was that the grenadier regiment did not please him. He shouts: “March in the indicated direction for a thousand miles!” Let's go! And after a thousand miles we stop for an eternal rest!” And he points in the direction with his finger. Well, the regiment, of course, turned and walked. What are you going to do? We walked and walked for three months and reached this place. The forest all around is impassable. One wild. They stopped and began cutting down huts, crushing clay, laying stoves, and digging wells. They built a village and called it Polkovo, as a sign that a whole regiment built it and lived in it. Then, of course, liberation came, and the soldiers took root in this area, and, almost, everyone stayed here. The area, as you can see, is fertile. There were those soldiers - grenadiers and giants - our ancestors. Our growth comes from them. If you don’t believe it, go to the city, to the museum. They will show you the papers there. Everything is spelled out in them. And just think, if only they could walk two more miles and come out to the river, they would stop there. But no, they didn’t dare disobey the order, they definitely stopped. People are still surprised. “Why are you guys from the regiment, they say, running into the forest? Didn't you have a place by the river? They say they are scary, big guys, but apparently they don’t have enough guesses in their heads.” Well, you explain to them how it happened, then they agree. “They say you can’t go against an order! It is a fact!"
Vasily Lyalin volunteered to take us to the forest and show us the path to Borovoe Lake. First we passed through a sandy field overgrown with immortelle and wormwood. Then thickets of young pines ran out to meet us. The pine forest greeted us with silence and coolness after the hot fields. High in the slanting rays of the sun, blue jays fluttered as if on fire. Clear puddles stood on the overgrown road, and clouds floated through these blue puddles. It smelled of strawberries and heated tree stumps. Drops of either dew or yesterday’s rain glistened on the leaves of the hazel tree. Cones fell loudly.
Great forest! - Lyalin sighed. - The wind will blow, and these pines will hum like bells.
Then the pines gave way to birches, and behind them the water sparkled.
Borovoe? - I asked.
No. It’s still a walk and a walk to get to Borovoye. This is Larino Lake. Let's go, look into the water, take a look.
The water in Larino Lake was deep and clear to the very bottom. Only near the shore she shuddered a little - there, from under the moss, a spring flowed into the lake. At the bottom lay several dark large trunks. They sparkled with a weak and dark fire when the sun reached them.
Black oak,” said Lyalin. - Stained, centuries-old. We pulled one out, but it’s difficult to work with. Breaks saws. But if you make a thing - a rolling pin or, say, a rocker - it will last forever! Heavy wood, sinks in water.
The sun shone in the dark water. Beneath it lay ancient oak trees, as if cast from black steel. And butterflies flew over the water, reflected in it with yellow and purple petals.
Lyalin led us onto a remote road.
“Step straight,” he showed, “until you run into mosslands, a dry swamp.” And along the mosshars there will be a path all the way to the lake. Just be careful, there are a lot of sticks there.
He said goodbye and left. Vanya and I walked along the forest road. The forest became higher, more mysterious and darker. Streams of golden resin froze on the pine trees.
At first, the ruts that had long ago been overgrown with grass were still visible, but then they disappeared, and the pink heather covered the entire road with a dry, cheerful carpet.
The road led us to a low cliff. Beneath it lay mosshars - thick birch and aspen forests heated to the roots. The trees grew from deep moss. Small yellow flowers were scattered here and there on the moss and dry branches with white lichens were scattered.
A narrow path led through the mshars. She avoided high hummocks. At the end of the path, the water glowed black blue - Borovoe Lake.
We walked carefully along the mshars. Pegs, sharp as spears, stuck out from under the moss - the remains of birch and aspen trunks. Lingonberry thickets have begun. One cheek of each berry - the one turned to the south - was completely red, and the other was just beginning to turn pink. A heavy capercaillie jumped out from behind a hummock and ran into the small forest, breaking dry wood.
We went out to the lake. The grass stood waist-high along its banks. Water splashed in the roots of old trees. A wild duckling jumped out from under the roots and ran across the water with a desperate squeak.
