Korolenko in g bought a boy to read. To read the online book “Gutta-percha boy. Stories by Russian writers for children

Gutta-percha boy: stories of Russian writers for children

Dmitry Vasilievich Grigorovich

Gutta-percha boy

“… When I was born, I cried; subsequently, every day I lived, I explained to me why I cried when I was born ... "

I

Snowstorm! Snowstorm !! And how suddenly! How unexpected!!! Until that time, the weather was fine. It was slightly freezing at noon; the sun, dazzlingly sparkling on the snow and forcing everyone to squint, added to the joy and diversity of the street Petersburg population, celebrating the fifth day of Maslenitsa. This went on until almost three hours, until dusk, and suddenly a cloud flew in, the wind rose, and the snow poured down with such a density that in the first minutes nothing could be made out on the street.

The bustle and crush were especially felt on the square opposite the circus. The audience that came out after the morning performance could hardly make their way in the crowd that was pouring from the Tsarina to the Luga, where the booths were. People, horses, sleighs, carriages - everything was confused. In the midst of the noise, impatient exclamations were heard from all over, and disgruntled, grumbling remarks were heard from persons taken by surprise by the blizzard. There were even those who immediately got seriously angry and chose her well.

Among the latter, one should first of all rank the directors of the circus. Indeed, if we take into account the upcoming evening performance and the expected audience, a blizzard could easily hurt the business. Shrovetide undoubtedly possesses the mysterious power to awaken in a person's soul a sense of duty to use pancakes, to delight oneself with amusements and spectacles of all kinds; but, on the other hand, it is also known from experience that a sense of duty can sometimes fail and be weakened by reasons incomparably less worthy than a change in the weather. Be that as it may, a blizzard shook the success of the evening performance; even some fears were born that if the weather did not improve by eight o'clock, the circus box office would suffer significantly.

So or almost so reasoned the director of the circus, seeing off the audience, crowded at the exit. When the doors to the square were locked, he walked across the hall to the stables.

In the circus hall, the gas has already been extinguished. Passing between the barrier and the first row of seats, the director could make out through the darkness only the circus arena, indicated by a round dull yellowish spot; the rest - everything: the empty rows of chairs, the amphitheater, the upper galleries - went into darkness, in places indefinitely turning black, in places disappearing in a foggy mist, strongly saturated with the sweet-sour smell of stables, amyac, damp sand and sawdust. Under the dome, the air was already so thick that it was difficult to distinguish the outline of the upper windows; darkened outside by a cloudy sky, half covered with snow, they peeped inward, as if through jelly, imparting enough light to make the lower part of the circus even more dim. Throughout this vast, dark space, the light passed sharply only in a golden longitudinal strip between the halves of the drapery, which fell under the orchestra; it crashed into the thick air like a ray, disappeared and reappeared at the opposite end at the exit, playing on the gilding and crimson velvet of the middle box.

Behind the drapery, which let in the light, voices were heard, horses' stomps were heard; they were joined from time to time by the eager barking of the learned dogs, who were locked up as soon as the show was over. The life of the noisy staff who had animated the circus arena during the morning performance half an hour ago was now concentrated there. There only gas was now burning, illuminating the brick walls, hastily whitewashed with lime. At their base, along rounded corridors, piled up decorations, painted barriers and stools, stairs, stretchers with mattresses and carpets, bundles of colored flags; in the light of the gas, the hoops hanging on the walls, intertwined with bright paper flowers or sealed with thin Chinese paper, were clearly outlined; A long gilded pole gleamed beside him, and a blue sequined curtain stood out, which adorned the support when dancing on the rope. In a word, there were all those objects and devices that instantly transfer the imagination to people flying in space, women vigorously jumping into a hoop in order to get their feet on the back of a galloping horse again, children tumbling in the air or hanging on the same socks under dome.

Despite, however, that everything here resembled frequent and terrible cases of bruises, fractures of ribs and legs, falls associated with death, that human life constantly hung here by a thread and was played with it, like with a ball - in this bright corridor and located in its restrooms there were more cheerful faces, jokes, laughter and whistling were mainly heard.

So it was now.

In the main aisle, which connected the inner corridor with the stables, almost all the faces of the troupe could be seen. Some of them had already changed their costume and stood in mantilla, fashionable hats, coats and jackets; others only managed to wash off the blush and whitewash and hastily throw on a coat, from under which peeped out legs, covered in colored tights and shod in shoes embroidered with sequins; still others took their time and showed off in full costume, as they were during the performance.

Between the latter, special attention was paid to himself of a small stature man, covered from chest to feet in a striped leotard with two large butterflies sewn on the chest and on the back. From his face, thickly smeared with white, with eyebrows drawn perpendicularly across his forehead, and red circles on his cheeks, it would have been impossible to tell how old he was, if he had not taken off his wig as soon as the performance was over, and bald spot that ran over his head.

He noticeably bypassed his comrades, did not interfere in their conversations. He didn’t notice how many of them nudged each other and winked playfully as he passed.

At the sight of the director who entered, he backed away, quickly turned away and took a few steps towards the restrooms; but the director hastened to stop him.

- Edwards, wait a minute; still have time to undress! - said the director, looking closely at the clown, who stopped, but apparently did it reluctantly, - wait, please; I just need to talk to Frau Braun ... Where is Madame Brown? Call her here ... Ah, Frau Braun! - exclaimed the director, addressing a small lame, no longer young woman, in a cloak, also not young, and a hat, even older than a cloak.

Frau Brown was not alone: \u200b\u200bshe was accompanied by a girl of about fifteen, slender, with delicate features and beautiful expressive eyes.

She was also poorly dressed.

- Frau Brown, - the director hastily spoke, casting another probing glance at the clown Edwards, - Mr. Director is unhappy with you today - or, anyway, with your daughter: very unhappy! .. Your daughter fell three times today and the third time is so awkward that frightened the audience!

- Ah, pa-pa-li-pa! We need to rehearse more, that's what! The fact is that it is impossible that way; receiving one hundred and twenty rubles a month of salary for your daughter ...

- But, mister director, God knows, the horse is to blame for everything; she is constantly out of step; when Malchen jumped into the hoop - the horse changed its legs again, and Malchen fell ... everyone saw, everyone will say the same ...

Everyone has seen it is true; but everyone was silent. The culprit of this explanation was also silent; she caught the case when the director did not look at her, and timidly glanced at him.

- It's a well-known case, it is always the horse's fault in such cases, - said the director. “Your daughter will, however, ride her tonight.

- But she doesn't work in the evening ...

- It will work, madam! Should work! .. - the director said irritably. “You’re not on the schedule, it’s true,” he picked up, pointing to a written sheet of paper hanging from the wall above the board, strewn with chalk and serving the artists to wipe their soles before entering the arena, “but it’s all the same; juggler Lind suddenly fell ill, your daughter will take his number.

“I thought to let her rest tonight,” said Frau Braun, finally lowering her voice, “now Shrovetide: they play twice a day; the girl is very tired ...

- This is the first week of fasting, madam; and finally, the contract seems to say clearly: “the artists are obliged to play daily and replace each other in case of illness” ... It seems clear; and, finally, Frau Braun: receiving a hundred and twenty rubles a month for your daughter, it seems ashamed to talk about it: it’s just ashamed! ..

Cutting off in this way, the director turned his back on her. But before going up to Edwards, he looked around him again searchingly.

The dull look and, in general, the whole figure of the clown, with his butterflies on the back and on the chest, did not bode well for the experienced eye; they clearly indicated to the director that Edwards had entered a period of melancholy, after which he suddenly began to drink the dead; and then goodbye to all the calculations for the clown - the calculations are the most solid, if you take into account that Edwards was the first storyline in the troupe, the first favorite of the audience, the first amusement, who invented almost every performance something new, made the audience laugh until they drop clap until frenzy. In a word, he was the soul of the circus, its main decoration, its main bait.

My God, what could Edwards say in response to his comrades, who often boasted to him that the public knew them and that they had been to the capitals of Europe! There was no circus in any big city from Paris to Constantinople, from Copenhagen to Palermo, where Edwards was not applauded, where his image in a suit with butterflies was not printed on posters! He alone could replace the whole troupe: he was an excellent rider, equilibrist, gymnast, juggler, master of training horses, dogs, monkeys, pigeons, and as a clown, as a funny man, he did not know his opponent. But fits of melancholy in connection with the binge pursued him everywhere.

Everything then disappeared. He always had a presentiment of the approach of illness; the melancholy that possessed him was nothing more than an inner consciousness of the futility of the struggle; he became morose, uncommunicative. Flexible as steel, a man turned into a rag, which his envious people secretly rejoiced in and which aroused compassion among those of the main artists who recognized his authority and loved him; the latter, I must say, were few. The pride of the majority was always more or less hurt by the appeal of Edwards, who never observed degrees and distinctions: whether the first plot that appeared in the troupe with a famous name, whether a simple mortal of dark origin, was indifferent to him. He clearly even preferred the latter.

When he was healthy, he was constantly seen with some child from the troupe; for lack of such, he fiddled with a dog, a monkey, a bird, etc .; his affection was always born somehow suddenly, but extremely strongly. He always surrendered himself to her the more stubbornly the more he became silent with his comrades, began to avoid meeting with them and became more and more gloomy.

During this first period of illness, the circus management could still count on him. The ideas had not yet had time to lose their effect on him. Leaving the restroom in tights with butterflies, in a red wig, whitewashed and rouged, with perpendicularly drawn eyebrows, he was apparently still cheerful, joining his comrades and preparing to enter the arena.

Listening to the first bursts of applause, shouts of "bravo!", The sounds of the orchestra, he gradually came to life, inspired, and as soon as the director shouted: "Clowns, forward! .." - he quickly flew into the arena, ahead of his comrades; and from that moment on, in the midst of bursts of laughter and enthusiastic "bravo!" - his tearful exclamations were incessantly distributed, and quickly, until blinding, his body tumbled, merging in the light of gas into one circular continuous sparkle ...

But the performance ended, the gas was extinguished - and everything vanished as if by hand! Without a suit, without whitewash and blush, Edwards seemed only a bored person who diligently avoided conversation and collisions. This went on for several days, after which the very illness set in: then nothing helped: he then forgot everything; he forgot his affections, he forgot the circus itself, which, with its illuminated arena and clapping audience, contained all the interests of his life. He even disappeared completely from the circus; everything was drunk, the accumulated salary was drunk, not only tights with butterflies, but even a wig and shoes, embroidered with sequins, were drunk.

It is now clear why the director, who had been following the growing gloom of the clown since the beginning of Maslenitsa, was looking at him with such concern. Going up to him and carefully taking his arm, he took him aside.

“Edwards,” he said, lowering his voice and in a completely friendly tone, “it's Friday today; left Saturday and Sunday - only two days! What's worth waiting out, eh? .. I ask you about it; the director also asks ... Think finally about the audience! You know how she loves you !!. Two days in total! - he added, grabbing his hand and starting to swing it from side to side. - By the way, you wanted to tell me something about the gutta-percha boy, - he picked up, apparently more with the aim of entertaining Edwards, since he knew that the clown had recently expressed particular concern for the boy, which also served as a sign of the approaching illness, - you said he seemed to work weaker. There is no wise man: a boy is in the hands of such a fool, such a fool who can only spoil him! What about him?

Edwards, without a word, touched his rump with his palm, then patted his chest.

- We cannot, however, refuse it now; he's on the poster; no one to replace until Sunday; let it work for two days; he can rest there, - said the director.

- It may also not stand it, - the clown objected dully.

“You could only stand it, Edwards! You just wouldn't leave us! - quickly and even with tenderness in his voice picked up the director, starting to swing Edwards' hand again.

But the clown answered with a dry squeeze, turned away and slowly went to undress.

He stopped, however, as he passed the toilet of the gutta-percha boy, or rather the toilet of the acrobat Becker, since the boy was only his pupil. Opening the door, Edwards entered a tiny, low room below the first gallery for spectators; it was intolerable in her from the stuffiness and heat; the gas-heated stable air was filled with the smell of tobacco smoke, lipstick and beer; on one side there was a small mirror in a wooden frame sprinkled with powder; beside, on a wall covered with wallpaper that had burst in all the cracks, hung a tights that looked like ripped human skin; further on, on a wooden nail, stuck out a pointed felt hat with a peacock feather on its side; several sequined colored camisoles and a piece of men's everyday clothing were piled up on the table in the corner. The furniture was complemented by a table and two wooden chairs. On one sat Becker, a perfect likeness of Goliath. Physical strength manifested itself in every muscle, a thick bandage of bones, a short neck with inflated veins, a small round head, hard-boiled and thickly oiled. He seemed not so much molded into a shape as hewn from a coarse material, and, moreover, a coarse instrument; although he looked about forty years old, he seemed ponderous and clumsy - a circumstance that did not in the least prevent him from considering himself the first handsome man in the troupe and thinking that when he appeared in the arena in flesh-colored tights, he would crush women's hearts. Becker had already taken off his suit, he was still in his shirt and, sitting on a chair, chilled himself with a glass of beer.

On the other chair was seated, also curled, but completely naked, a blond and thin boy of about eight. He had not yet had time to catch a cold after the performance; on his thin limbs and the hollow in the middle of his chest, in places, there was still a gloss from perspiration; the blue ribbon that bound his forehead and held his hair was completely wet; large damp spots of sweat covered the tights that lay in his lap. The boy sat motionless, timidly, as if punished or awaiting punishment.

He looked up just as Edwards entered the restroom.

- Whats up? - Becker said unfriendly, glancing either angrily or mockingly at the clown.

- Enough, Karl, - objected Edwards in a soothing voice, and it was evident that it took some effort on his part, - you better this: give me a boy before seven o'clock; I would have walked with him before the performance ... I would have taken him to the square to look at the booths ...

The boy's face perceptibly perked up, but he did not dare to show it clearly.

“Don't,” Becker said, “I won't let it go; he worked poorly today.

Tears flashed in the boy's eyes, glancing furtively at Becker, he hurried to reveal them, using all his strength so that he did not notice anything.

“He’ll work better tonight,” Edwards said. - Listen, I'll tell you what: while the boy is getting cold and getting dressed, I will have him bring beer from the buffet ...

- And without that there is! Becker interrupted rudely.

- Well, as you wish; but only the boy would have been more cheerful; boredom is not good for our work; you know yourself: cheerfulness gives strength and cheerfulness ...

- This is my business! Snapped Becker, clearly out of sorts.

Edwards didn't mind anymore. He glanced again at the boy, who continued to make efforts not to cry, shook his head and left the restroom.

Karl Becker finished the rest of his beer and ordered the boy to get dressed. When both were ready, the acrobat took a whip from the table, whistled through the air, shouted: "March!" and, letting the pupil go ahead, walked down the corridor.

Watching them go out into the street, the imagination involuntarily imagined a puny, fledgling chicken, accompanied by a huge fatted hog ...

A minute later, the circus was completely deserted; only the grooms remained, cleaning the horses for the evening performance.

II

The pupil of the acrobat Becker was called “gutta-percha boy” only in posters; his real name was Petya; it would be more correct, however, to call him an unhappy boy.

Its history is very short; and where could she be long and difficult when he was only eight years old!

Having lost his mother in the fifth year of age, he well, however, remembered her. As now I would see in front of me a skinny woman with light, thin and always disheveled hair, who caressed him, filling his mouth with everything that was tucked under his arm: onions, a piece of pie, herring, bread, then suddenly, for no reason this, she threw herself on, began to shout and at the same time began to spank him with anything and wherever they hit. Nevertheless, Petya often recalled his mother.

He, of course, did not know the details of the home situation. He did not know that his mother was no more and no less, as an extremely eccentric, albeit kind chukhonka, who passed from house to house as a cook and was persecuted from everywhere, partly for excessive weakness of the heart and constant romantic adventures, partly for sloppy handling of dishes , beating in her hands as if on her own whim.

Once she somehow managed to get to a good place: she could not stand it there either. Within two weeks, she suddenly announced that she was marrying a temporary leave soldier. No amount of admonition could shake her resolve. The Chukhonts, they say, are generally stubborn. But the groom must have been no less stubborn, even though he was Russian. The motives on his part were, however, much more solid. Being a doorman at a large house, he could already consider himself in some way a settled, determined person. The room under the stairs, however, was not distinguished by great convenience: the ceiling was cut off at an angle, so that under its elevated part a tall man could hardly straighten up, but people do not live in such cramped conditions; finally, the apartment is free, one cannot be exacting.

Thinking in this way, the doorman still seemed hesitant until he managed to accidentally buy a samovar for a very cheap price at Apraksin Dvor. At the same time, its oscillations began to be established on a more solid ground. Fiddling with a samovar really was somehow not a man's business; the car obviously required a different engine; the hostess seemed to be asking herself.

Anna (that was the name of the cook) had that special advantage in the eyes of the doorman that, first, she was already somewhat familiar to him; secondly, by living in the neighborhood, across the house, it greatly facilitated negotiations and, consequently, reduced the time dear to each employee.

The offer was made, joyfully accepted, the wedding was played, and Anna moved to her husband under the stairs.

The first two months lived happily ever after. The samovar boiled from morning to evening, and steam, passing under the doorframe, poured in clubs towards the ceiling. Then it became somehow neither one nor the other; finally, the matter completely soured when it was time to give birth and then - like it or not - I had to celebrate the christening. The Swiss thought for the first time that he was in a hurry, having tied himself by marriage. Being an outspoken person, he directly expressed his feelings. Send reproaches, abuse, quarrels ensued. In the end, the doorman was refused a place, citing the constant noise under the stairs and the screams of the newborn, which bothered the residents.

The latter was no doubt unfair. The newborn was born so puny, so exhausted that he even gave little hope of living until the next day: if not for Anna's compatriot, the washerwoman Varvara, who, as soon as the child was born, hurried to pick him up in her arms and shook him until he did not shout or cry - the newborn could really justify the prediction. It must be added to this that the air under the stairs did not really have such healing properties that one day it could restore the strength of the child and develop his lungs to such an extent that a cry could disturb anyone. Most likely, it was a desire to remove restless parents.

A month later, the doorman was demanded to the barracks; on the same evening it became known to everyone that he and the regiment were being sent on a campaign.

Before parting, the couple became close again; many tears were shed on the wires and even more beer.

But her husband left - and the ordeal to find a place began again. Now it was only more difficult: almost no one wanted to take Anna with the child. So the year dragged on with grief in half.

Anna was once summoned to the barracks, announced that her husband had been killed, and given her a widow's passport.

Her circumstances, as everyone can easily imagine, did not improve in the least. There were days when there was nothing to buy herring and a piece of bread for himself and for the boy; if not for the kind people who sometimes poked in a chunk or potatoes, the boy would probably have withered and died prematurely from exhaustion. Fate finally took pity on Anna. Thanks to the participation of her compatriot Varvara, she became a laundress to the owners of a cork factory, located on the Black River.

It was especially good in the summer, when in the evening the activities of the factory stopped, the noise ceased, the working people dispersed, only the women who served with the owners remained. Tired of work and the heat of the day, the women descended on the raft, sat down on the benches, and endless chatter began at their leisure, seasoned with jokes and laughter.

In the enthusiasm of the conversation, a few of those present noticed how the coastal willows were gradually enveloped in shadow and at the same time the sunset flared brighter and brighter; how an oblique ray of the sun suddenly burst out from around the corner of the neighboring dacha; how suddenly the tops of the birches and the edges of the fences were reflected together with the cloud in the sleeping water, and how, at the same time, hordes of mosquitoes restlessly moving from top to bottom appeared above the water and in the warm air, promising the same good weather for tomorrow.

This time was indisputably the best in the life of a boy - then not yet gutta-percha, but ordinary, as all boys are. How many times did he then tell the clown Edwards about the Black River. But Petya spoke quickly and with enthusiasm; Edwards barely understood Russian; hence, there have always been a number of misunderstandings. Thinking that the boy was telling him about some magical dream, and not knowing how to answer him, Edwards usually confined himself to the fact that he gently ran his palm up and down his hair and chuckled good-naturedly.

And so Anna lived fairly, but a year passed, then another, and suddenly, quite unexpectedly again, she announced that she was getting married. "How? What? For whom? .. ”- was heard from different sides. This time the groom turned out to be an apprentice of tailors. How, where the acquaintance was made - no one knew. Everyone finally just gasped when they saw the groom - a man the size of a thimble, shrunken, with a yellow face like a baked onion, moreover, still limping on his left leg - well, in a word, as they say, a perfect little bitch.

No one really understood anything. Of course, Petya could understand less of all. He wept bitterly when they took him away from the Black River, and sobbed even louder at his mother's wedding, when at the end of the feast one of the guests grabbed the votchim by the tie and began to strangle him, while the mother rushed to separate them with a cry.

Less than a few days later, it was Anna's turn to regret her haste to tie herself by marriage. But the deed was done; it was too late to repent. The tailor spent the day in the workshop; in the evening he was just returning to his closet, always accompanied by friends, among whom the best friend was the one who was going to strangle him at the wedding. Each brought vodka in turn, and the drinking party began, usually ending in a dump. Here Anna always got it, and the boy also got it in passing. It was sheer hard labor! The worst thing for Anna was that for some reason her husband took a dislike to Petya; he mowed at him from day one; on every occasion he contrived to hook him and, as soon as he got drunk, threatened to drown him in the hole.

Since the tailor disappeared for several days in a row, the money was all spent on drink and there was nothing to buy bread, Anna, to feed herself and the child, went to day work. For this time she entrusted the boy to an old woman who lived in the same house with her; in the summer the old woman sold apples, in the winter she traded boiled potatoes at Haymarket, carefully covering the cast-iron pot with a rag and sitting down on it with great convenience when it was too cold outside. She carried Petya everywhere, who fell in love with her and called her grandmother.

After several months, Anna's husband completely disappeared; some said they saw him in Kronstadt; others asserted that he had secretly exchanged his passport and moved to live in Shlisselburg, or "Shlyushino," as it was more often expressed.

Instead of breathing more freely, Anna finally wrapped herself up. She became kind of crazy, her face was thin, her eyes were worried, her chest was sunken, she herself was terribly thin; to her miserable appearance it must be added that she was all worn out; there was nothing to put on or lay; only rags covered it. Finally, one day, she suddenly disappeared. It was accidentally discovered that the police had picked her up on the street, exhausted from hunger. She was taken to the hospital. Her compatriot, the washerwoman Varvara, having visited her once, told her friends that Anna had stopped recognizing her acquaintances and would not give her soul to God today or tomorrow.

Once, when he was completely immersed in the process of shaving and, taking himself by the tip of his nose, stuck out his shaved cheek with his tongue, the elder brother pushed the shutter of the window through the window, carefully went down into the room and opened the exit door. Having thus secured a retreat, he began to perform a wild dance in the middle of the room: he jumped, grimaced, threw his legs above his head and shouted in a wild voice: "Gop, slap, tanana ..."

Standing outside the window, we were horrified to expect what would happen. To our great amazement, the ill-fated gentleman remained where he was. On his face not a single muscle flinched, he just as carefully held himself by the tip of his nose, shaving his mustache, and just stuck out his cheeks with his tongue. Then, seeing that the shaving procedure was only at the beginning, and Ulyanitsky did not intend to interrupt it, my younger brother and I also went down to the room and joined the frantic dance. It was some kind of childish rage: chairs, a dress from hangers, brushes and brushes flew to the floor. Frightened Mamert looked at this end of the world with senselessly bulging round eyes ... One Pan Ulyanitsky maintained complete equanimity, tucked up to his neck with a napkin, with a razor in his hand and with his eyes slanted onto a small mirror ... And, only with the usual thoroughness he finished shaving and carefully put the razor in a case , he suddenly leaped from his place and rushed to the rod. The elder brother darted through the open door, and the two of us rushed like frightened cats to the window. I was already on the windowsill when the rod whistled over my ear and slid along my back without pain ...

From that time on, Pan Ulyanitsky, sitting down to shave, carefully closed the window. But the frames were old and the valves were poorly fitted. Seeing that Ulyanitsky had already started shaving, we boldly approached the window, tugged at the window and threw off the hooks with thin shingles pushed into the slot. How to explain this, I do not know, probably because of the fear of cutting tools: once he took up the razor, Ulyanitsky could no longer interrupt the difficult task to the end. During our predatory attempts to enter his sanctuary, he only squinted one eye, and an expression of anxious melancholy appeared on his frozen face. When we managed to open the bolt, the window was thrown open with a noise, and the dance of savages began in the old gentleman's room.

One morning Pan Ulyanitsky again appeared on the windowsill with a mysterious object under the hem of his dressing gown, and then, going up to our porch and looking especially at our faces, he began to assure that, in fact, he very, very much loves us too, and his dear Mamerik, whom he even wants to sew a new blue jacket with copper buttons, and asks us to please him with this news if we happen to meet him anywhere.

It turned out that the boy he had bought had disappeared.

On the evening of the same day, my younger brother mysteriously called me out of the room and took me to the barn. It was dark in the barn, but my brother boldly walked forward and, stopping in the middle, whistled. At first everything was quiet, then something stirred in the corner, among the firewood, and Mamerik came out to us. It turned out that he had arranged for himself something like a hole between the load of firewood and the wall and had been living here for two days. He said that living “nothing, you can”, only want to eat, and at night it was scary at first. Now I'm used to it. To our message about the love of Ulyanitsky and the jacket, he answered decisively:

Not so. I'd better drown myself at the shrines.

Since then, we have had our own secret. In the evenings we brought Mamerik something to eat and went out for a walk together in the secluded corners of the courtyard ... We had conditioned signals and a whole system of conspiracy. This went on for several more days, until the mother noticed our meaningful whispers. She asked us about everything and told her father. The elders took part in the boy, and Pan Ulyanitsky was even called up for some explanations, to the mistress, Mrs Kolyanovskaya. The morals in our courtyard were rather patriarchal, and it seemed natural to everyone that the landlady would call the tenant for explanations, and perhaps for suggestion. We carefully kept the secret of the shelter, as we were deeply afraid that we would not give it up to "anyone in the world." Therefore, when the terms of surrender were worked out “at the top” with Ulyanitsky, the negotiations were conducted through us. Mamerik finally decided to surrender, and Ulyanitsky's power was limited by public opinion. The whole court knew that Mrs. Kolyanovskaya threatened Ulyanitsky "to drive him out of the commotion."

After a while, however, he himself suddenly left somewhere. The purchased boy disappeared forever somewhere in a wide unknown world, and his further fate remained unknown to us.

Once it seemed to us that we met, if not him, then his double.

One summer a new personality appeared in a narrow alley. He was a boy Mameric's age, with the same dark complexion and round eyes. But upon closer examination it turned out that neither his gait, nor his whole behavior in the least resembled our modest and timid friend. He was dressed in a new short blue jacket with two rows of round metal balls, in tight blue trousers with strips at the bottom and in large well-polished boots. On his head was a round cap without a visor, worn completely on one side, like a Cossack.

Noticing that we are looking at him with the greatest curiosity, burying our faces between the balusters of the front garden, the stranger suddenly began to do some amazing things on the go. He put his legs as if they did not bend at his knees at all, his arms were rounded so that they seemed to be two loops, he lifted his head up and looked at us with the greatest contempt over his shoulder, obviously proud of the recently put on new suit and, perhaps, imitating the manners of some senior livery courtier. He was all sparkling and enjoying himself and, moreover, he was sure that we were completely overwhelmed by his magnificence and burned with envy. Therefore, having fulfilled some errand in the stable, he again walked past us, twisting his legs and playing with his lower back, then returned, as if he had forgotten, and walked through again. All this seemed offensive to us, and one of us said:

The boy spat and replied:

My brother raised the tone of the dialogue a note higher:

You bastard!

But the boy apparently knew all the forms of exquisite treatment and immediately objected:

I am a bastard, help the king, and you yourself are a convict.

We felt that the stranger was still the winner. But at that time a grown man in a livery dress coat with wide long folds approached the boy with quick steps. His gait was also somewhat loose and strange, and I guessed that the unfamiliar boy imitated precisely his movements: his legs also bent badly, and his arms were rounded at the elbows. He called out to the boy, and as soon as he turned around, the one who approached burned him with a sharp, strong and sudden slap in the face. The boy howled in pain and grabbed his cheek with his hand, and he hit the other cheek and said:

Let's go! Why were you sent? .. - and pushed him hard in the neck.

Any unpleasant feeling for an unfamiliar boy in us instantly evaporated, replaced by acute pity. We told our mother and father about this incident, thinking that this time too, interference would follow, as in the Mamert case. But my father explained to us that the Cossack boy belongs to strangers who came to visit our neighbors, and that nothing can be done here ...

We were waiting after this new appearance of the boy, ready to meet him as a friend. But he didn’t come out, and soon we saw him for the last time on the high box of the carriage, in which the family of some important gentlemen sat ... There were also children, very neat and elegant, but our acquaintance was most of all interested in us. He was in the same jacket and in the same hat on one side, but the former splendor was no longer noticeable in him. He seemed to avoid looking at us, but when the huge sob began to move, he turned his black eyes to us, again surprisingly reminding us of Mameric, and, as if furtively, nodded his head amiably.

We watched the leaving carriage for a long time, until it flashed for the last time on the ridge of the highway. The smart children traveling in the carriage seemed to me somehow unpleasant and cold, and behind the unfamiliar Cossack, with whom we only had time to exchange curses, a feeling of burning sympathy and closeness rushed into the unknown distance.

Current page: 1 (total book has 28 pages)

Vladimir Galaktionovich Korolenko
The story of my contemporary. Book one

V.G. Korolenko. Collected works in ten volumes.

Volume five. The story of my contemporary M., GIHL, 1954

Preparation of text and notes S.V. Korolenko

OCR Lovetskaya T. Yu.

From the author

In this book I try to recall and revive a number of pictures of the past half century, how they were reflected in the soul of first a child, then a young man, then an adult. Early childhood and the early years of my youth coincided with the time of liberation. The middle of his life passed in a period of dark, first governmental and then public reaction and among the first movements of the struggle. Now I see much of what my generation dreamed of and fought for, bursting into the arena of life anxiously and violently. I think that many episodes from the times of my exiled wanderings, events, meetings, thoughts and feelings of people of that time and that environment have not lost the interest of living reality itself. I would like to think that they will still retain their significance for the future. Our life hesitates and shudders from sharp collisions of new principles with obsolete ones, and I hope to at least partially illuminate some of the elements of this struggle.

But earlier I wanted to draw the attention of readers to the first movements of the nascent and growing consciousness. I realized that it would be difficult for me to focus on these distant memories under the rumble of the present, in which the thunder of an impending thunderstorm is heard, but I did not imagine how difficult it would be.

I am not writing the history of my time, but only the history of one life at that time, and I would like the reader to get acquainted first with the prism in which it was reflected ... And this is possible only in a consistent story. Childhood and adolescence are the content of this first part.

One more note. These notes are not a biography, because I was not particularly concerned with completeness of biographical information; not confession, because I do not believe in the possibility or in the usefulness of public confession; not a portrait, because it is difficult to paint your own portrait with a guarantee for the similarity. Every reflection differs from reality in that it is a reflection; the reflection is deliberately incomplete - even more so. It always, so to speak, reflects the chosen motives more densely, and therefore often, for all its truthfulness, it is more attractive, interesting and, perhaps, purer than reality.

In my work, I strove for the fullest possible historical truth, often sacrificing beautiful or vivid features of artistic truth to it. There will be nothing here that I have not met in reality, that I have not experienced, felt, or seen. And yet I repeat: I am not trying to give my own portrait. Here the reader will find only features from the "history of my contemporary", a person known to me closer to all other people of my time ... 1
The preface was written at the end of 1905 and prefaced to the first chapters of The History of My Contemporary, which appeared in the January 1906 book of Sovremennye Zapiski.

Part one
Early childhood

I
First impressions of being

I remember myself early, but my first impressions are scattered, like brightly lit islands amid colorless emptiness and fog.

The earliest of these memories is a strong visual impression of a fire. I could go then the second year 2
I could go then the second year - Vladimir Galaktionovich was born on July 15 (old style) 1853 in Zhitomir, Volyn province.

But I can see quite clearly even now the tongues of flame above the roof of the shed in the courtyard, the walls of a large stone house, strangely lit in the middle of the night, and its windows glowing with flames. I remember myself, wrapped up warmly, in someone's arms, among a bunch of people standing on the porch. From this vague crowd, memory distinguishes the presence of the mother, while the lame father, leaning on a stick, climbs the stairs of the stone house in the courtyard opposite, and it seems to me that he is walking into the fire. But that doesn't scare me. I am very much interested in the helmets of firefighters flashing around the courtyard like firecrackers, then one fire barrel at the gate and a schoolboy with a shortened leg and a high heel as he enters the gate. It seems that I did not feel either fear or anxiety, I did not establish any connection between phenomena. For the first time in my life, so much fire, fire helmets and a schoolboy with a short leg, fell into my eyes, and I carefully examined all these objects against the deep background of night darkness. At the same time, I do not remember the sounds: the whole picture only silently pours in my memory with floating reflections of a crimson flame.

I remember, then, several completely insignificant cases when they hold me in their arms, soothe my tears or amuse me. It seems to me that I remember, but very vaguely, my first steps ... My head in childhood was big, and when I fell, I often bumped it on the floor. Once it was on the stairs. I was in great pain and cried out loudly until my father consoled me with a special welcome. He hit the rung of the stairs with a stick, and this gave me satisfaction. Probably, I was then in the period of fetishism and assumed an evil and hostile will in the wooden board. And so they beat her for me, and she can't even leave ... Of course, these words very roughly translate my feelings at that time, but I clearly remember the board and as if the expression of her submissiveness under the blows.

Subsequently, the same sensation was repeated in a more complex form. I was already somewhat larger. It was an unusually bright and warm moonlit evening. This is generally the first evening that I remember in my life. The parents had gone somewhere, the brothers must have been asleep, the nanny had gone to the kitchen, and I was left with only one footman who bore the dissonant nickname Gandylo. The door from the front door to the courtyard was open, and from somewhere, from the moonlit distance, rumbling of wheels rushed along the cobbled street. And for the first time I also singled out the rumbling of the wheels in my mind as a special phenomenon, and for the first time I did not sleep for so long ... I was scared - probably, they were talking about thieves during the day. It seemed to me that our courtyard in the moonlight was very strange and that a "thief" would certainly enter the open door from the courtyard. It was as if I knew that the thief was a man, but together he seemed to me and not quite a man, but some kind of humanoid mysterious creature who would make me evil by his very sudden appearance. This made me cry loudly.

I don’t know by what logic — but the footman Gandylo again brought my father’s stick and led me out onto the porch, where I — perhaps in connection with an earlier episode of the same kind — began to beat hard on the stair. And this time it was again satisfying; my cowardice had passed so much that two more times I fearlessly went out alone, without Gandyl, and again pounded on the stairs of an imaginary thief, reveling in a peculiar feeling of my courage. The next morning, I enthusiastically told my mother that yesterday, when she was not there, a thief came to us, whom Gandyl and I severely beat. The mother condescendingly agreed. I knew that there was no thief and that my mother knew it. But at that moment I loved my mother very much because she did not contradict me. It would be hard for me to give up that imaginary creature that I was first afraid of, and then positively "felt", in the strange moonlight, between my stick and the rung of the stairs. It was not a visual hallucination, but there was some kind of ecstasy from my victory over fear ...

The trip to Chisinau to my paternal grandfather is still an island in my memory ... 3
... to my paternal grandfather ... - Afanasy Yakovlevich Korolenko - grandfather of Vladimir Galaktionovich. Born in 1787, died around 1860 in Bessarabia. He served in the customs department. He was married to a Polish woman, Eva Malskaya.

From this trip, I remember crossing the river (Prut, I think), when our carriage was installed on the raft and, smoothly swaying, separated from the shore, or the shore separated from it - I still could not distinguish this. At the same time, a detachment of soldiers was crossing the river, and, I remember, the soldiers sailed in twos and threes on small square rafts, which, it seems, does not happen when troops cross ... I looked at them with curiosity, and they looked into our carriage and they said something incomprehensible to me ... It seems that this crossing was in connection with the Sevastopol war ... 4
... in connection with the Sevastopol war - Eastern (or Crimean) War of 1853-1856.

That same evening, shortly after crossing the river, I experienced the first feeling of sharp disappointment and resentment ... It was dark inside the spacious travel carriage. I was sitting in someone's arms in front of me, and suddenly my attention was attracted by a reddish dot that flashed and then faded away in the corner, in the place where my father was sitting. I began to laugh and reached out to her. Mother said something warning, but I was so anxious to get to know an interesting object or creature so much that I began to cry. Then my father pushed a little red star towards me, tenderly hiding under the ashes. I reached for her with my right index finger; for some time it did not work, but then suddenly it flared brighter, and I was suddenly burned by a sharp bite. I think that in terms of the strength of the impression now, this could be equated unless a strong and unexpected bite of a poisonous snake, lurking, for example, in a bouquet of flowers. The light seemed to me deliberately cunning and evil. Two or three years later, when I remembered this episode, I ran to my mother, began to tell and started crying. These were again tears of resentment ...

The same disappointment caused my first bathing. The river made an enchanting impression on me: the small greenish waves of swell that burst under the walls of the bath were new, strange and beautiful to me, and the way they played with sparkles, fragments of heavenly blue and bright pieces of a seemingly broken bath. All this seemed to me cheerful, lively, cheerful, attractive and friendly, and I begged my mother to bring me into the water as soon as possible. And suddenly - an unexpected and harsh impression of either cold or burn ... I cried loudly and so huddled in my mother's arms that she almost dropped me. This time my bathing did not take place. While my mother splashed in the water with pleasure incomprehensible to me, I sat on the bench, pouting, looking at the crafty swell, which continued to play just as temptingly with fragments of the sky and the pool, and was angry ... At whom? It seems to the river.

These were the first disappointments: I rushed towards nature with the confidence of ignorance, she responded with a spontaneous dispassion, which seemed to me deliberately hostile ...

Another of those primary sensations, when the phenomenon of nature for the first time remains in the consciousness isolated from the rest of the world, as special and sharply finished, with its main properties. This is the memory of the first walk in the pine forest. Here I was positively mesmerized by the lingering noise of the forest tops, and I stopped, rooted to the spot, on the path. Nobody noticed this, and our whole society moved on. The path a few fathoms ahead sloped steeply downward, and I watched as at this break, first the legs, then the bodies, then the heads of our company disappeared. I waited with an eerie feeling for the last bright white hat of Uncle Heinrich to disappear 5
... uncle Henry - Genrikh Iosifovich Skurevich - lawyer, forensic investigator ("Uncle Henry" in the story "At Night"). He died in the early 70s.

The tallest of my mother's brothers, and, finally, was left alone ... I seem to feel that “alone in the forest” is, in essence, scary, but, like a bewitched one, I could neither move nor utter a sound and only listened now a quiet whistle, now a ringing, now a vague talk and sighs of the forest, merging into a prolonged, deep, endless and meaningful harmony, in which the general hum, and individual voices of living giants, and the swaying and quiet creaking of red trunks were caught simultaneously ... it seemed to penetrate me with an exciting powerful wave ... I ceased to feel separate from this sea of \u200b\u200blife, and it was so strong that when they missed me and my mother's brother came back for me, I stood in the same place and did not respond ... my uncle, in a light suit and a straw hat, I saw as if a stranger, a stranger in a dream ...

Subsequently, this minute often arose in my soul, especially during hours of fatigue, as a prototype of deep but living peace ... Nature affectionately attracted the child at the beginning of his life with its endless, incomprehensible secret, as if promising somewhere in infinity the depth of knowledge and the bliss of solving ...

How, however, rudely our words express our sensations ... There is also a lot of incomprehensible dialect in the soul, which cannot be expressed with coarse words, like the speech of nature ... And this is exactly where the soul and nature are one ...

All these are scattered, separate impressions of a semi-conscious existence, as if not connected by anything other than personal sensation. The last of them is moving to a new apartment ... And not even moving (I don’t remember it, just as I don’t remember the previous apartment), but again the first impression of the “new house”, of the “new yard and garden”. All this seemed to me a new world, but strange: then this memory falls out of my memory. I remembered about him only a few years later, and when I did, I was even surprised, because at that time it seemed to me that we lived in this house forever and that in general there are no major changes in the world. The main background of my impressions for several childhood years is an unconscious confidence in the complete completeness and immutability of everything that surrounded me. If I had a clear idea of \u200b\u200bcreation, I would probably say then that my father (whom I knew as a lame) was created with a stick in his hand, that God created my grandmother exactly by my grandmother, that my mother was always just as beautiful a blue-eyed woman with a fair-haired braid that even the shed behind the house was born lopsided and with green lichens on the roof. It was a quiet, steady growth of vitality, smoothly carrying me away along with the surrounding world, and the shores of a third-party immense world, along which one could notice movement, were not visible to me then ... And I myself, it seemed, was always the same boy with a big head, and the older brother 6
…Older brother - Yulian Galaktionovich Korolenko. Born on February 16, 1851, died on November 25, 1904. He studied first in the Zhytomyr, and then in the Rovno gymnasium, but did not finish the course. In the mid-70s he moved to St. Petersburg, where he was engaged in proofreading work. He had acquaintances with members of the populist movement and provided them with some services. On March 4, 1879, he was arrested along with his brothers and imprisoned in the Lithuanian castle, but on May 11 of the same year he was released and left in St. Petersburg under the secret police surveillance. Subsequently, he lived in Moscow, where for many years he was a proofreader of Russkiye Vedomosti and delivered notes to this newspaper for the Moscow Chronicle department. Julian Galaktionovich possessed literary abilities. In his early youth, he was fond of writing poetry, translation and correspondence (see in this volume chapter XXIX "My elder brother becomes a writer"). He translated together with Vladimir Galaktionovich (under the general signature of Cor-o) Michelet's book "Loiseau" ("Bird", published by N. V. Vernadsky, Petersburg, 1878). Vladimir Galaktionovich appreciated his brother's literary abilities and subsequently tried to induce him to more serious literary work. In one of his letters in 1886, V.G. wrote to his brother: "The question comes to me, why don't you add literature to your studies ..." I got it from you, you walked in this direction ahead of me for a very long time, and I remember very well how some of your thoughts, your arguments in the hot “Haraluzh” disputes raised in me whole chains of new ideas. Your literary ability is beyond doubt, and I think now you can still use it. " However, having left his literary hobbies rather early, Yulian Galaktionovich never returned to them.

Was somewhat taller than me, and the younger 7
…Jr - Illarion Galaktionovich Korolenko (his family nickname was "Peretz", "Pepper"). Born October 21, 1854, died November 25, 1915. He studied at the Rovno real gymnasium, and then at the St. Petersburg construction school. In his youth he was engaged in proofreading work. Prepared to "go to the people" and for this purpose he studied the locksmith trade. In 1879, at the same time as Vladimir Galaktionovich, he was arrested and exiled to Glazov, Vyatka province, where he served administrative exile for five years. Living in Glazov, he was engaged in locksmith work, working in a workshop organized by him with a friend (see about this book. II "History of my contemporary", chapter "Life in Glazov"). Upon his return from exile at the end of 1884, he lived in Nizhny Novgorod, working as a cashier at a steamship pier. Subsequently, he was an inspector of the Northern Insurance Society, in connection with which he traveled a lot. By the way, he lived in Astrakhan, was familiar with N. G. Chernyshevsky, whom he helped in compiling an index to his translation of Weber's "General History". Through Illarion Galaktionovich, V.G.Korolenko met Chernyshevsky. He also lived in Siberia, where he had many connections among political exiles. The last years of his life he spent in the Caucasus, in Dzhanhot, near Gelendzhik. Vladimir Galaktionovich was especially friendly with his brother Illarion from his earliest years; later he tried to reflect his image in two stories devoted to childhood memories - "Night" and "Paradox".

Below ... And this mutual relationship had to remain forever ... We sometimes said: "when we are big", or: "when we die", but it was a stupid phrase, empty, without living content ...

One morning my younger brother, who both fell asleep and got up before me, came up to my bed and said with a special expression in his voice:

- Get up, hurry ... What will I show you!

- What?

- You will see. Hurry, I won't wait.

And he again went into the yard with the air of a serious man who did not want to waste time. I dressed hastily and went out after him. It turned out that some strangers to us had completely destroyed our front porch. It left a pile of boards and various wood rot, and the exit door hung strangely high above the ground. And most importantly, under the door there was a deep wound of peeling plaster, dark logs and piles ... The impression was sharp, partly painful, but even more striking. The brother stood motionless, deeply interested, and watched every movement of the carpenters with his eyes. I joined his silent contemplation, and soon my sister joined us both 8
... my sister joined in. - V. G. Korolenko had two sisters. The eldest of them - Maria Galaktionovna (Vladimir Galaktionovich called her "Typewriter") - was born on October 7, 1856, died on April 8, 1917. She graduated from the Catherine Institute in Moscow, then studied obstetric courses in St. Petersburg. She married a student of the Military Surgical Academy Nikolai Aleksandrovich Loshkarev, and in 1879 followed him into exile in Krasnoyarsk. Upon their return from exile, the Loshkarevs family lived for several years in Nizhny Novgorod.
The second sister of V.G.Korolenko - Evelina Galaktionovna was born on January 20, 1861, died in September 1905. She studied at the gymnasium and then graduated from obstetric courses in St. Petersburg. When in 1879 almost all the members of the Korolenko family were sent into exile, Evelina Galaktionovna, in need of earnings, took up proofreading (a habitual work in the Korolenko family) and in 1882 she married a workmate, Mikhail Efimovich Nikitin.

And so we stood for a long time, not saying anything or moving. Three or four days later the new porch was ready in place of the old one, and it seemed to me positively that the physiognomy of our house had completely changed. The new porch was clearly “attached”, while the old one seemed to be an organic part of our venerable solid house, like a nose or eyebrows on a person.

And most importantly, the first impression of the "underside" and the fact that under this smoothly planed and painted surface are hidden raw piles corroded by rot and gaping voids ...

II
My father 9
My father - Galaktion Afanasevich Korolenko. Born on December 26, 1810 in the city of Letichev, Podolsk province. He died on July 31, 1868 in Rivne. Vladimir Galaktionovich reproduced some of his father's features in the image of a judge in the story "In a Bad Society".

According to family legend, our family came from some Mirgorod Cossack colonel 10
... the Mirgorod Cossack colonel. - A copy of an old document has been preserved in the Korolenko family archive, from which it is clear that the Mirgorod Cossack colonel mentioned here was called Ivan Korol. He lived in the 17th century.

Received the heraldic nobility from the Polish kings. After the death of my grandfather, my father, who went to the funeral, brought back an intricate seal, which depicted a boat with two dog heads on the bow and stern, and with a toothed tower in the middle. When one day we children asked what it was, my father replied that it was our "coat of arms" and that we have the right to stamp our letters on them, while other people do not have this right. The name of this thing in Polish is rather strange: “Korabl i Lodzia” (ark and boat), but what sense it makes, the father himself cannot explain to us; perhaps, it doesn't make any sense ... But there is also a coat of arms, so it is called more simply: "pchła na bęnbenku hopki tnie" 1
The flea is dancing on the drum.

And it makes more sense, because the Cossacks and the gentry in the campaigns were bitten by fleas ... And, taking a pencil, he vividly sketched on paper a flea dancing on a drum, surrounding it with a shield, sword and all the coat of arms. He drew decently, and we laughed. Thus, to the very first idea of \u200b\u200bour noble "Kleinods" father added a shade of mockery, and it seems to me that he had it deliberately. My great-grandfather, according to my father, was a regimental clerk, my grandfather was a Russian official, like my father. It seems that they never owned serf souls and lands ... Father never aspired to restore his hereditary - noble rights, and when he died, we turned out to be "the sons of the court councilor", with the rights of a placeless serving nobility, without any real ties with the noble milieu , yes, it seems, and with any other.

The image of my father remained in my memory quite clearly: a man of average height, with a slight inclination to be overweight. As an official of the day, he shaved carefully; his facial features were thin and beautiful: an aquiline nose, large brown eyes and lips with strongly curved upper lines 11
... with strongly curved top lines. - Not a single portrait of Galaktion Afanasyevich exists; according to family tradition, he was never photographed.

It was said that in his youth he looked like Napoleon the First, especially when he put on a Napoleonic bureaucratic hat. But it was hard for me to imagine Napoleon lame, and my father always walked with a stick and dragged his left leg slightly ...

On his face there was always an expression of some kind of hidden sadness and concern. Only occasionally did it become clear. Sometimes he gathered us to his office, let us play and crawl on our own, drew pictures, told funny anecdotes and fairy tales. Probably, in the soul of this man there was a large reserve of complacency and laughter: even his teachings he gave a semi-humorous form, and at these moments we loved him very much. But these glimpses became less and less frequent over the years, natural gaiety was more and more twitched by melancholy and care. In the end, he was only enough to manage somehow our upbringing, and in more conscious years we no longer had any inner intimacy with my father ... So he went to the grave, little known to us, his children. And only a long time later, when the years of youthful carelessness passed, I gathered line by line what I could about his life, and the image of this deeply unhappy man came to life in my soul - both dearer and more familiar than before.

He was an official. The objective history of his life has therefore been preserved in his "service records". Born in 1810, in 1826 entered a scribe ... Died in 1868 with the rank of court councilor ... Here is a meager canvas, on which, however, the patterns of all human life were embroidered ... Hopes, expectations, glimpses of happiness, disappointment ... Among the yellowed papers, one , actually unnecessary later, but which my father saved as a memory. This is a semi-official letter from Prince Vasilchikov 12
Vasilchikov I. I. - Kiev, Volyn and Podolsk Governor-General in 1852-1862.

About the appointment of my father as a district judge in the city of Zhitomir. "This court," writes Prince Vasilchikov, "on the occasion of the joining of the magistrate, taking on a broader and, consequently, more important range of actions, requires a presiding officer who, fully comprehending his purpose, would give the legal proceedings a satisfactory start." 13
"... gave the legal proceedings a satisfactory start." - City magistrates were judicial and administrative institutions, the court of which was subject to all criminal and civil cases that arose between persons of the merchant and bourgeois class. During the General Governorship of Prince. Vasilchikov's magistrates in all cities of the Southwestern Territory, except for Kiev, were connected with the district courts.

It is in these forms that the prince chooses his father. At the end of the letter, the "nobleman" with great attention enters into the position of a modest official, as a family man, for whom the transfer is associated with inconveniences, but at the same time indicates that the new appointment opens him wide views of the future, and asks to come as soon as possible ... the lines are inscribed by the author of the letter with his own hand, and the tone is imbued with respect. It was a modest, now forgotten, failed, but nevertheless reform, and a brilliant nobleman, tyrant and satrap, like all nobles of that time, not without, however, some "good intentions and impulses", invited a modest official to his staff, whom he recognized a new person for a new business ...

It was ... in 1849, and my father was offered the position of a district judge in a provincial town. Twenty years later, he died in the same position in a remote district town ...

So, he was an obvious loser in the service ...

To me, there is no doubt that this is due to his quixotic honesty.

Wednesday does not really appreciate exceptions, which it does not understand, and therefore worries ... Each time, at the new place of father's service, the same scenes were invariably repeated: representatives of different urban estates with offerings came to the father "according to the time-honored custom". The father refused at first rather calmly. On the next day, the deputations appeared with offerings in an increased size, but the father met them already rudely, and on the third day he unceremoniously chased the “representatives” with a stick, and they crowded at the door with an expression of amazement and fright ... deep respect. Everyone recognized, from a small merchant to the provincial authorities, that there was no force that would make the judge twist his heart against conscience and the law, but ... and at the same time they found that if the judge, in addition, accepted moderate "thanks", it would be clearer, simpler and generally "more human" ...

Already in the period of my rather conscious life, a rather vivid episode of this kind happened. In the district court there was a trial of a rich landowner, Count E - sky, with a poor relative, it seems, the widow of his brother. The landowner was a magnate with great connections, means and influence, which he actively used. The widow led the process "on the basis of poverty", without paying stamp duties, and everyone predicted her failure, since the case was still complicated, and the court was under pressure. Before the end of the case, the count himself appeared: his carriage with coats of arms stopped two or three times at our modest house, and a lanky hayduk in livery stuck out at our rickety porch. The first two times the count behaved stately, but cautiously, and his father only coldly and formally removed his approaches. But the third time, he probably made a direct offer. Father, suddenly flushed, cursed the aristocrat with some indecent word and rapped with a stick. The count, red and furious, left his father with threats and quickly got into his carriage ...

The widow also came to her father, although he did not particularly like these visits. The poor woman, in mourning and with tear-stained eyes, oppressed and timid, came to her mother, told her something and cried. It seemed to the poor man that she still had something to explain to the judge; Probably, these were all unnecessary trifles, which the father only brushed aside and uttered the usual phrase he used in such cases:

- AND! Interpret the patient with the doctor! .. Everything will be done according to the law ...

The trial was decided in favor of the widow, and everyone knew that she owed this exclusively to her father's firmness ... The Senate somehow unexpectedly soon approved the decision, and the modest widow immediately became one of the richest landowners not only in the district, but, perhaps, in the province.

When she again came to our apartment, this time in a carriage, everyone could hardly recognize her as the former modest petitioner. Her mourning was over, she seemed even younger and shone with joy and happiness. Her father received her very cordially, with the kindness that we usually feel for people who owe us a lot. But when she asked for a “talk in private,” she too soon left the office with a flushed face and tears in her eyes. The kind woman knew that the change in her position entirely depended on the firmness, perhaps even of some service heroism of this modest lame man ... But she herself was not able to express her gratitude to him in any significant way ...

It upset her, even offended her. The next day, she came to our apartment when my father was at work, and my mother accidentally left the house, and brought in various materials and goods, which she piled all the furniture in the living room. By the way, she called her sister and brought her a huge doll, beautifully dressed, with large blue eyes that closed when she was put to bed ...

Mother was very scared when she found all these gifts. When my father came home from court, one of the most violent outbreaks I can remember burst into our apartment. He scolded the widow, threw the fabrics on the floor, blamed his mother and calmed down only when a cart appeared in front of the entrance, on which they piled all the gifts and sent back.

But then an unexpected difficulty arose. When it came to the doll's turn, the sister strongly protested, and her protest took on such a dramatic character that the father, after several attempts, nevertheless gave in, albeit with great displeasure.

“Through you I have become a bribe-taker,” he said angrily, going into his room.

At that time everyone looked at it as an aimless eccentricity.

“Well, to whom, please tell me, is the harm from gratitude,” one virtuous judge, “who did not take bribes,” told me: after all, the matter is over, the person feels that he owes everything to you, and goes with a grateful soul ... almost dogs ... For what?

I'm pretty sure my father never discussed this issue in terms of immediate harm or benefit. I guess that he entered life with great and, probably, not quite usual expectations for that time. But life wiped him out in a gray and dirty environment. And he treasured, as the last shrine, this feature, which distinguished him not only from the crowd of notorious "bribe-takers", but also from among the virtuous people of the then golden mean ... And the more difficult it was for him with a large and growing family, the more sensitive and by his exclusiveness he fenced off his spiritual independence and pride ...

At the same time, one feature was for me later some psychological riddle: all around (it was "standing", like a decayed swamp) rampant bribery and untruth. The "officials" of the very court where my father served, undoubtedly, took right and left, and, moreover, not only gratitude, but also notorious "swag". I remember how one "respected" gentleman, a good acquaintance of our family, a lively and witty person, at one evening with us in a rather large company, very picturesquely told how he once helped a Jewish smuggler to dodge responsibility and save a huge consignment of seized goods ... The smugglers promised to enrich the petty official who was starting his career, but ... he fulfilled their request earlier than they did their promise ... To calculate, he was assigned a date at night in some secluded place, where he waited until dawn ... I remember very vividly the picture description of that night; the official was waiting for the Jew as "in love with his beloved." He listened sensitively to the sounds of the night, he feverishly rose to meet every rustle ... And the whole society followed with breathtaking attention the transitions from hope to disappointment in this bribery drama ... When it turned out that the official had been cheated, the drama was resolved by general laughter, under which, however , it was guessed and indignation against the Jews, and some sympathy for the deceived. My father was right there, and my memory clearly paints a picture: a card table, lit by tallow candles, behind him four partners. Among them is my father, and against him is the hero of a contraband joke, accompanying with witticisms every card thrown. Father laughs merrily ...

In general, he treated the environment with great complacency, protecting only a small circle from falsehood, on which he had a direct influence. I remember several times when he came home from court deeply grieved. Once, when his mother, looking with anxious concern into his upset face, handed him a bowl of soup, he tried to eat, ate two or three spoons, and pushed the plate away.

“I can't,” he said.

- Is it over? - asked the mother quietly.

- Yes ... hard labor ...

- Oh my God! - the mother said frightened. - And what are you?

- AND! Interpret the patient with the clerk, - answered the father with irritation: - Me! me! .. What can I do!

But then he added more gently:

- I did what I could ... The law is clear.

He did not dine that day and did not go to bed after dinner as usual, but walked around the office for a long time, tapping his stick as he walked. When, two hours later, my mother sent me into the study to see if he had fallen asleep, and, if he was awake, to call for tea, I found him kneeling in front of the bed. He fervently prayed for the image, and his whole somewhat fat body trembled ... He wept bitterly.

But I am sure that these were tears of regret for the "sacrifice of the law", and not a corroding consciousness of their guilt, as its instruments. In this respect, his conscience has always been unshakably calm, and when I now think about it, the main difference in the mood of honest people of that generation with the mood of our days becomes clear to me. He recognized himself as responsible only for his personal activities. The pungent feeling of guilt for social untruths was completely unfamiliar to him. God, the king and the law stood for him at a height inaccessible to criticism. God is omnipotent and just, but there are many triumphant villains and suffering virtue on earth. This is included in the unknown plans of the Highest Justice - and nothing more. The king and the law are also inaccessible to human judgment, and if sometimes, with some applications of the law, the heart turns in the chest with pity and compassion, this is a spontaneous misfortune that is not subject to any generalizations. One perishes from typhus, the other from the law. Unhappy fate! It is the judge's business to see that the law, once put into use, is correctly applied. But if this is not the case, if the bribery bureaucratic environment distorts the law to please the strong, he, the judge, will fight this within the court by all means available to him. If he has to suffer for this, he will suffer, but in the case of number such and such, any line entered by his hand will be clean from falsehood. And in this form, the case will go beyond the district court to the Senate, and maybe even higher. If the Senate agrees with his considerations, he will be sincerely happy for the right side. If the senators are bribed by power and money, this is a matter of their conscience, and someday they will answer for this, if not before the king, then before God ... That laws can be bad, this again lies with the responsibility of the king before God, - he, judge, just as not responsible for this, as well as for the fact that sometimes a thunder from the sky kills an innocent child ...

Korolenko "The Bought Boy" you can read the summary in 5 minutes.
It is better to read the story "The Bought Boy" in full. Ulyanitsky and the "bought boys" a summary of the story will not convey all the details and feelings of the characters.

"Bought Boy" summary

An old bachelor Pan Ulyanitsky lived in the basement of the house. He spent a lot of time every morning at his toilet and the children from the outbuilding opposite were constantly watching him. Once Pan Ulyanitsky decided that he spent a lot of time on household chores, and he hired a boy. It was the son of the cook Lucy Petrik. But soon his mother started screaming that her son was being beaten and Petrik left the complication. Then Pan Ulyanitsky went to his father and returned with a ten-year-old orphan boy Mamerik, whom he bought from some landowner. The children wanted to befriend Mameric, but at first he avoided meeting them. Soon they became friends and learned that Pan Ulyanitsky is very stingy, constantly beats Mamerica and only allows him to lick the dishes with food after him. The children began to feed the boy. And soon, before their very eyes, Pan Ulyanitsky whipped Mamerica. Children began to wage a hidden war against the Pan, he often ran after them with rods. Soon Mamerik ran away from the Pan and hid among the firewood, he did not want to return and was even ready to drown himself. At first, the children fed him, and when the parents found out about what had happened, they told the owner of the house, Pan Kolyanovskaya. Kolyanovskaya threatened Ulyanitsky to kick him out of the house and he was forced to capitulate. Mameric returned to him, but soon Ulyanitsky took Mameric and left the house.

Once the children looked into the courtyard and it seemed to them that they saw a double of Mameric. The boy looked a lot like him and was pretty decently dressed. The boy began to flaunt in front of the children, which grew into name-calling to each other. But then a man appeared and slapped the boy. The boy belonged to this man. Now the boy was ashamed to look children in the eyes, and the children felt very sorry for him. So the children began their acquaintance with the serfdom.

The father of the children had a coachman, Joachim, who fell in love with the courtyard girl Marya. They wanted to get married, but Marya's mistress did not want to give her freedom. Joachim was ready to become a serf himself, just to be with Marya, and Marya was even ready to lay hands on herself. But Marya's mistress was a kind woman and took pity on her. She gave her freedom and even played her a wedding for her money. But it was a rare case when serfs were treated this way.

I decided to prepare several sketches about the life of serfs in Russia in the 19th century. The first story is described by VG Korolenko in his “History of my contemporary”. She got involved in the late 1850s, i.e. literally on the eve of the abolition of serfdom. The action takes place in Zhitomir.

“... It was a tenant, an old bachelor, Pan Ulyanitsky ... We knew that he was an" old bachelor "...

One fine day he found it inconvenient for his groom's reputation that he had no servants, as a result of which he had to sweep the room himself and travel daily with a mysterious object under the hem of his robe ...

Soon he left for a while to the village, where his old father was alive, and when he returned, a whole cartload of various village products came for him, and a boy of ten or eleven years old, in a short jacket, with a swarthy face and round with eyes that looked with fear at the unfamiliar surroundings ... From that day on, the boy settled in Ulyanitsky's room, cleaned, brought water and went to the restaurant with pans for dinner. His name was Mamert, or, diminutive, Mameric, and soon it became known in the courtyard that he was an orphan and, moreover, a serf, whom his father gave Ulyanitsky, or he bought himself from some landowner.

I definitely cannot remember that the very thought of the possibility of "buying a boy" evoked in me any conscious protest or indignation. I perceived the phenomena of life then rather indifferently. I saw that people are old and young, healthy and sick, rich and poor, and all this, as I said, seemed to me "eternal". These were just primary facts, ready-made natural phenomena. It is the same fact that there are boys in the world that you can buy. But, in any case, this circumstance made the newcomer an interesting subject, since we saw different boys, and the purchased boys had never been seen. And something vague at the same time still stirred in my soul.

It was difficult to get acquainted with the purchased boy. Even at the time when Pan Ulyanitsky was retiring to his post, his boy was locked up, leaving only for the most necessary things: wash out the dirty linen, bring water, go with pots for dinner. When we approached him on occasion and spoke, he looked like a top, lowered his black round eyes fearfully and tried to leave as soon as possible, as if talking with us was a danger to him.

Little by little, however, the rapprochement began. The boy stopped lowering his eyes, stopped, as if tempted to speak, or smiled as he passed us. Finally one day, meeting us around the corner of the house, he put a dirty bucket on the ground, and we entered into a conversation. It began, of course, with questions about the name, "how old are you," "where did you come from," etc. The boy asked, in turn, our name, and ... asked for a piece of bread.

We soon became pals. Ulyanitsky always came back at a certain time, like a wound-up car, and therefore we could even enter his room without fear that he would find us. We found out that our daily renewed neighbor is in essence a very wicked stingy and tormentor. He does not feed Mameric, but only gives him to lick the empty vessels and gnaw the crusts of bread, and has already managed to tear him out painfully twice without any fault. So that the boy does not sit for nothing and indulge in various gallows ("urvis" - we guessed that Ulyanitsky understood us by this flattering name), he asks him a lesson: pinch feathers for pillows, and sells the plucked feathers to Jewish women. We brought Mameric bread, which he ate with great greed.

And the fearful glances of the sad black eyes, and the sad expression of his swarthy face, and the stories, and the greed with which he pounced on the food we brought - all this inspired us with some exciting, acute sympathy for the purchased boy and anger against his master , which one morning and broke out.

Poor Mamerik was guilty of something, and already the day before he had a premonition that the master would certainly beat him. The next morning Ulyanitsky came out from behind the screen not with the usual smug gleam, but with some kind of mysterious expression on his face. He was without a coat, and he held his hands back. Stopping at the screen, he called Mameric, ordered him to serve something. But as soon as the boy timidly approached, Ulyanitsky, with the swiftness of a cat, grabbed him, bent down, put his head in his knees, pulled down his pants, and a bunch of rods whistled in the air. Mameric screamed desperately and thrashed.

In our family, morals were generally mild, and we had never seen such a cruel reprisal. I think that the strength of the impression now for me could be equal to the feeling of that time, unless the sudden murder of a person before my eyes. Outside the window we also screamed, stamped our feet and began to scold Ulyanitsky, demanding that he stop beating Mamerik. But Ulyanitsky only got into excitement more; his face became nasty, his eyes were bulging, his mustache stuck out fiercely, and the rod whistled in the air every now and then.

It is very likely that we could cry to hysteria, but then an unexpected circumstance happened for us: Ulyanitsky had flower pots on the window, which he looked after very diligently. His beloved mignonette stood closest to all. Suddenly inspired, our little sister grabbed the mignonette and threw it along with the pot on the floor. The pot broke, the earth with the flower fell out. Pan Ulyanitsky was dumbfounded for a moment, then left Mamerica, and before we knew it, his mad face appeared on the windowsill. We grabbed my sister by the arms and started running to our porch, where we sat down, feeling safe within our limits. Pan Ulyanitsky really stopped not far from his window and, hiding the rod behind his back, began to call us in a sweet voice, promising to give us a piece of candy ... But the trick was too transparent, and we remained in place, looking very indifferently at his crafty approaches ...

One morning Pan Ulyanitsky again appeared on the windowsill with a mysterious object under the hem of his dressing gown, and then, going up to our porch and somehow especially peering into our faces, he began to assure us that in essence he very, very much loves both us and his dear Mamerik, for whom he even wants to sew a new blue jacket with copper buttons, and asks us to please him with this news if we happen to meet him anywhere.

It turned out that the boy he had bought had disappeared.

On the evening of the same day, my younger brother mysteriously called me out of the room and took me to the barn. It was dark in the barn, but my brother boldly walked forward and, stopping in the middle, whistled. At first everything was quiet, then something stirred in the corner, among the firewood, and Mamerik came out to us. It turned out that he had arranged for himself something like a hole between the load of firewood and the wall and had been living here for two days. He said that living "nothing, you can", just want to eat, and at night it was scary at first. Now I'm used to it. To our message about the love of Ulyanitsky and the jacket, he answered resolutely:

I don’t eat. I'd better drown myself at the krinitsi.

Since then, we have had our own secret. In the evenings we brought Mameric to food and went out together for a walk in the secluded corners of the courtyard ... We had conditioned signals and a whole system of conspiracy. This went on for several more days, until the mother noticed our meaningful whispers. She asked us about everything and told her father. The elders took part in the boy, and Pan Ulyanitsky was even called up for some explanations, to the mistress, Mrs Kolyanovskaya. The morals in our courtyard were rather patriarchal, and it seemed natural to everyone that the landlady would call the tenant for explanations, and perhaps for suggestion. We carefully kept the secret of the shelter, as we were deeply afraid that we would not give it to "anyone in the world." Therefore, when the terms of surrender were worked out "at the top" with Ulyanitsky, the negotiations were conducted through us. Mamerik finally decided to surrender, and Ulyanitsky's power was limited by public opinion. The whole court knew that Mrs. Kolyanovskaya threatened Ulyanitsky "to expel him from the commotion."

After a while, however, he himself suddenly left somewhere. The purchased boy disappeared forever somewhere in a wide unknown world, and his further fate remains unknown to us "