Read another story by V.P. Astafiev - "A horse with pink mane". What kind of people does the writer continue to talk about, acquainting us with their life, with the habits and peculiarities of their characters?

Horse with a pink mane

My grandmother came back from the neighbors and told me that the Levontievsk children were going to ridge 1 for strawberries, and told me to go with them.

You will pick up a bag 2. I will take my berries to the city, I will also sell yours and buy you a gingerbread.

Horse, woman?

Horse, horse.

Gingerbread with a horse! Well this is the dream of all village kids. He is white-white, this horse. And his mane is pink, his tail is pink, his eyes are pink, his hooves are also pink.

My grandmother never allowed to drag around with pieces of bread. Eat at the table, otherwise it will be bad. But gingerbread is another matter entirely.

You can shove the gingerbread under a shirt, run and hear the horse kicking with its hooves on its bare belly. Cold with horror - lost! - to grab at the shirt and be happy to make sure that he is here, the horse-fire! ..

1 Uval is a gentle hill with a considerable length.

2 Tuyesok - a birch bark basket with a tight lid.

With such a horse you will be immediately honored, how much attention! The Levontievskie guys flirt with you this way and that, and they give the first one to hit the siskin, and shoot from the slingshot, so that they would only be allowed to bite off the horse or lick it.

When you give Levontievsky Sanka or Tanya a bite, you must hold with your fingers the place where you should bite off, and hold it tight, otherwise Tanya or Sanka will bite so hard that a tail and a mane will remain of the horse.

Levontiy, our neighbor, worked on badogs 3 together with Mishka Korshunov. Levontius logged timber for badoga, sawed it, chopped it and handed it over to the lime plant, which was opposite the village on the other side of the Yenisei.

Once every ten days - or maybe fifteen, I don't remember exactly - Levontius received money, and then in the Levontievs' house, where there were only children and nothing else, the feast began like a mountain.

Some kind of anxiety, fever, or something, then seized not only the Levont'ev house, but all the neighbors. Early in the morning Levontikha, Vasya's aunt, ran to her grandmother, out of breath, hunted down, with rubles clutched in handfuls.

Wait, you freaky! her grandmother called out. - You have to count!

Aunt Vasenya meekly returned, and while grandmother was counting the money, she was fingering with her bare feet, an evenly hot horse, ready to jerk as soon as the reins were released.

3 Badoga - long logs.

Grandmother counted in detail and for a long time, looking at each ruble. As far as I remember, my grandmother never gave Levontikha more than seven or ten rubles from the “reserve” for a rainy day, because all this “reserve”, it seems, consisted of ten. But even with such a small amount, the zapoloshny 4 Vasenya managed to get short of a ruble, or even three.

How do you handle money, you eyeless scarecrow! - the grandmother let loose on the neighbor. - Ruble for me! Ruble to another! This is what happens?

But Vasenya again whirled up and rolled with her skirt:

I did it!

For a long time my grandmother vilified Levontikha, Levontia himself, beat herself on the hips, spat, and I sat down at the window and looked longingly at the neighbor's house.

He stood by himself, in the open, and nothing prevented him from looking at the white light with somehow glazed windows - not a fence, not a gate, not a gate, not a platband, not a shutter.

In the spring, the Levont'ev family was picking a little ground around the house, erecting a fence of poles, twigs, old planks. But in winter all this gradually disappeared in the womb of the Russian stove, which was opened in the middle of the hut.

Tanya Levontievskaya used to say so, making a noise with her toothless mouth, about their whole establishment:

But how daddy whispers us - you run and do not zapnesha! Uncle Levontius himself went out into the street on warm evenings in trousers held on a single copper button with two eagles, and in a calico shirt without buttons at all. He sat on a block of wood, which depicted a porch, which was worn out with an ax, smoked, looked, and if my grandmother reproached him out the window for being idle, she listed the work that, in her mind, he should have done in the house and around the house, Uncle Levontiy would only kindly scratch himself:

I, Petrovna, love the settlement! - and drew his hand around him. - Good! Like the sea! Nothing will oppress the eye!

4 Zapoloshnaya - fussy.

Uncle Levontius once sailed the seas, he loved the sea, and I loved it. The main goal of my life was to break into Levontius's house after his paycheck. This is not so easy to do. Grandma knows all my habits.

There is no need to look out the pieces! she thundered. - There is nothing to eat these proletarians, they themselves have a louse on a lasso in their pockets.

But if I manage to sneak out of the house and get to the Levont'evskys, then that's it: here I am surrounded by rare attention, here I am a complete holiday.

Get out of here! - the drunken uncle Levontius strictly ordered one of his boys. And while one of them was reluctant to get out from the table, he explained to the children this action in a limp voice: “He’s an orphan, and you’re still with your parents!” - And, looking at me pitifully, he immediately bellowed: - Mother, do you at least remember? - I nodded my head in the affirmative, and then Uncle Levontius sadly leaned on his hand, rubbed tears over his face with his fist, recalled: - Badog with her for one year stabbed-and-and! - And completely bursting into tears: - Whenever you come ... night, midnight ... "Lost ... you lost head, Levontius!" -will say and ... get drunk-and-it ...

Here aunt Vasenya, the children of Uncle Levontius and I, together with them, hit a roar, and it became so pitiful in the hut, and such kindness seized the people that everything, everything spilled out and fell out on the table, and everyone vied with each other to treat me and ate through strength.

Late in the evening, or quite at night, Uncle Levontius asked the same question: "What is zhist ?!" - after which I grabbed gingerbread cookies, sweets, the Levon-Tyevskie kids also grabbed whatever came under their arms and scattered in all directions. The last move was asked by Vasenya. And my grandmother "welcomed" her until morning. Levontius smashed the remains of the glass in the windows, swore, thundered, cried.

The next morning he glazed windows, repaired benches, a table, then, full of darkness and remorse, went to work. Aunt Vasenya three or four days later again walked around the neighbors and no longer kicked up the whirlwind with her skirt. She again borrowed money, flour, potatoes - which will have to ...

So, with the children of Uncle Levontius, I went to pick strawberries in order to earn a gingerbread with my labor. The children carried glasses with broken edges, old birch bark cups, half torn for kindling for kindling, and one boy had a ladle without a handle. Levont'ev's eagles threw dishes at each other, floundered, once or twice they began to fight, cried, teased. On the way, they jumped into someone's garden and, since nothing was ripe there yet, they layered onion-batun, ate themselves to green saliva, and threw the half-eaten one. We left only a few feathers on the whistles. They squeaked at the bitten feathers all the way, and to the music we soon came to the forest, to a stony ridge.

Then everyone stopped squeaking, scattered along the ridge and began to take strawberries, just ripening, white-sided, rare and therefore especially joyful and expensive.

I took it diligently and soon covered the bottom of a neat little glass for two or three. Grandmother used to say: the main thing, they say, in the berries is to close the bottom of the vessel. I sighed with relief and began to pick berries more quickly, and there were more and more of them higher up the ridge.

The Levontievsk children walked quietly at first. The lid tied to the brass teapot only tinkled. The older boy had this kettle, and he rattled so that we could hear that the elder was here, nearby, and we had nothing to be afraid of.

Suddenly the teapot lid rattled nervously, and there was a fuss.

Eat, huh? Eat, huh? Home what? - asked the elder and gave someone a kick after each question.

A-ha-a-a-a! - Tanya sang. - Sanka also devoured, so nothing-oh-oh-oh ...

Sanka was also hit. He got angry, threw the bowl and fell into the grass. The elder took, took the berries, and you see, he felt hurt. He, the elder, takes the berries, tries for the house, but those who eat the berries or even lie on the grass. The elder jumped up and kicked Sanka again. Sanka howled, rushed at the elder. The kettle rang, berries spurted out of it. The Levontiev brothers are fighting, rolling on the ground, crushed all the strawberries.

After the fight, the elder dropped his hands. He began to collect the spilled, crushed berries - and into their mouth, into their mouth.

So you can, but I can't? You can, but I, therefore, can not? he asked ominously, until he ate everything he could collect.

Soon the Levontiev brothers somehow imperceptibly reconciled, stopped calling names and decided to go to the Malaya River for a splash.

I also wanted to splash, but I did not dare to leave, because I had not yet collected a full vessel.

Grandmother Petrovna was frightened! Oh you! - Sanka grimaced.

But my grandmother will buy a gingerbread with a horse!

Maybe a mare? - Sanka chuckled. He spat at his feet and quickly realized something: - Better say - you're afraid of her, and still greedy!

Do you want to eat all the berries? - I said this and immediately repented: I realized that I was in the wrong.

Scratched, with bumps on his head from fights and various other reasons, with chicks on his hands and feet, with red bloodied eyes, Sanka was more harmful and angrier than all the Levontiev guys.

Weak! - he said.

Am I weak? - I swore, looking askance at the tuesok. There were berries already above the middle. - Am I weak? - I repeated in a dying voice and, in order not to pass up, not to be cowardly, not to embarrass myself, I resolutely shook out the berries into the grass: - Here! Eat with me!

The Levont'ev horde piled up, and the berries instantly disappeared. I only got a few tiny berries. Sorry for the berries. Sad. But I put on despair, gave up on everything. It's all the same now! I rushed along with the Levont'ev children to the river and boasted:

I'll steal a roll from my grandmother!

The guys encouraged me: they say, act, and carry more than one roll. Maybe you can grab another shaneg 5 or a pie.

We splashed cold water from the river, wandered along it and caught the sculpin with our hands. Sanka grabbed this disgusting-looking fish, and we tore it to pieces on the shore for its ugly appearance. Then they shot stones at flying birds and knocked down the swift. We soldered the swift with water from the river, but he let blood into the river, but could not swallow the water, and died, dropping his head. We buried the swift on the shore, in the pebbles, and soon forgot about it, because we were engaged in an exciting, eerie business: we ran into the mouth of a cold cave, where an unclean force lived (it was known for certain in the village). Sanka ran into the cave farthest. Even the evil spirits did not take him!

This is what it is! - Sanka boasted, returning from the cave. - I would run further, I would run into a lump, but I am barefoot, and there are deaths of kites.

Zhmeev? - Tanya stepped back from the mouth of the cave and pulled up her falling pants just in case.

I saw the housekeeper with the brownie, - Sanka continued to tell.

Cracker! - cut Sanka as a senior. - Brownies live in the attic and under the stove.

1 Shanga - so called in the North and in Siberia cheesecake - a bun with cottage cheese.

Sanka was confused, but immediately challenged the elder:

What kind of brownie is there? Home. And here is a caveman. The moss is all gray, shivering - it's chilly to him. And the housewife is thin, looks plaintively and groans. You can't lure me in, just come and grab it and devour it. I put a stone in her eye! ..

Maybe Sanka was lying about the brownies, but it was still scary to listen to, and it seemed to me that someone in the cave was groaning and groaning. Tanya was the first to get rid of this bad place, and after her all the guys fell from the mountain. Sanka whistled, yelled, giving us heat ...

We spent the whole day so interesting and fun, and I completely forgot about the berries. But it was time to go home. We took apart the dishes hidden under the tree.

Katerina Petrovna will ask you! Will ask! - Sanka laughed. - We ate the berries ... Ha-ha! They ate it on purpose! Ha ha! Nishtyak for us! Ha ha! And you, ho, ho! ..

I myself knew that it was for them, Levontievsky, "ha-ha", but for me "ho-ho." My grandmother, Katerina Petrovna, is not Vasenya's aunt.

I walked quietly after the Levont'ev guys from the forest. They ran ahead of me in a crowd and drove a bucket without a handle along the road. The ladle clinked, bouncing on the stones, and the remains of the enamel bounced off it.

Do you know what? - After talking with the brothers, Sanka returned to me. - You push the herbs into the cupboard, and on top of the berries - and you're done! “Oh, my child! - began to mimic my grandmother Sanka with precision. - I helped you to remember, an orphan, helped ... ”- And the demon Sanka winked at me, and rushed on, down from the hill.

I sighed, I sighed, even almost burst into tears, and began to tear the grass. Narwhal, pushed it into the basket, then picked up the berries, laid the grass with them, it turned out strawberries even with a "shock".

You are my child! - screamed the grandmother, when I, freezing with fear, handed her my vessel. - The Lord helped you, an orphan girl! .. I'll buy you a gingerbread, but the biggest one. And I will not pour your berries to my own, but I will take away right in this tuyeska ...

Relieved a little.

I thought that now my grandmother would discover my fraud, give me what she was supposed to, and already prepared for punishment for the atrocity he had done.

But nothing happened. Everything worked out. My grandmother took the cupboard to the basement, praised me again, gave me something to eat, and I thought that I had nothing to fear and life was not so bad.

I ate and went outside to play, and there it pulled me to inform Sanka about everything.

And I'll tell Petrovna! And I'll tell you! ..

Don't, Sanka!

Bring a roll, then I won't tell you.

I sneaked into the closet, took out a roll from the chest and brought it to Sanka under a shirt. Then he brought another, then another, until Sanka got drunk.

“I cheated my grandmother. Kalachi stole. What will happen? " - I was tormented at night, tossing and turning on the beds. Sleep did not take me as a completely confused criminal.

Why are you crawling there? the grandmother asked hoarsely from the darkness. - I suppose wandered in the river again? Do your legs hurt again?

No, - I replied, - I had a dream ...

Sleep with God! Sleep, don't be afraid. Life worse than dreams, father ..

"What if you wake her up and tell her everything?"

I listened. The labored breathing came from below

grandmothers. It's a pity to wake her up: she is tired, she gets up early.

No, I'd rather not sleep until morning, I'll scaraul my grandmother, I'll tell her everything: about the little house, and about the housewife with the brownie, and about the rolls, and about everything, about everything ...

This decision made me feel better, and I did not notice how my eyes closed. Sanka's unwashed mug appeared, and then strawberries flashed, she filled up Sanka, and everything in this world.

There was a smell of pine forest on the floors, a cold mysterious cave ...

My grandfather was at a settlement 6, five kilometers from the village, at the mouth of the Mana river. There we sown a strip of rye, a strip of oats and a strip of potatoes.

At that time, conversations about collective farms were just beginning, and our villagers were still living alone. I loved to visit my grandfather at the hut. Calmly there, in detail somehow. Maybe because the grandfather never made noise and even worked leisurely, but very quietly and pliantly. Ah, if only the capture was closer! I would leave, hide. But five kilometers for me then was a huge, insurmountable distance. And Alyoshka, my bro, no. Recently, August's aunt came and took Alyosha with her to the forest site where she worked.

I wandered around, wandered around the empty hut and could not think of anything else how to approach the Levontievskys.

Has Petrovna gone? - Sanka grinned and spit into the hole between the front teeth. He could have one more tooth in this hole, and we were terribly jealous of this Sanka's hole. How he spat at her!

Sanka was going fishing and untangling the line. Small Levont'evskys walked near the benches, crawled, hobbled on crooked legs. Sanka handed out slaps to the right and to the left for the fact that the little ones climbed under the arm and confused the line.

There's no hook, ”he said angrily. - He must have swallowed something.

6 Capturing - land plot far from the village, mastered (plowed) by its owner.

Nishtyak, - Sanka reassured me. - You have a lot of hooks, I would. I'd take you fishing.

I was delighted and rushed home; grabbed fishing rods, bread, and we moved to the stone bulls, behind the cattle 7, descending directly into the Yenisei below the village.

Senior Levont'evsky was not there today. His father took him with him to "badogi", and Sanka recklessly commanded. Since he was the eldest today and felt a great responsibility, he no longer almost bully and even pacified the "people" if they began to fight.

Sanka put fishing rods at the bulls, made worms, spat on them and threw the fishing line.

Sha! - said Sanka, and we froze.

It didn't bite for a long time. We were tired of waiting, and Sanka drove us away to look for sorrel, coastal garlic and wild radish.

Levont'ev's guys knew how to get saturated "from the earth" - they ate everything that God sent, did not disdain, and that is why they were red-skinned, strong, dexterous, especially at the table.

While we were collecting greens suitable for grub, Sanka pulled out two ruffs, one gudgeon and a white-eyed dace.

They made a fire on the shore. Sanka picked up fish on sticks and began to fry them.

The fish were eaten almost raw, without salt. My children grinded bread even earlier and did something else: they pulled swifts out of their burrows, "panned" with stone tiles on the water, tried to swim, but the water was still cold, and we quickly jumped out of the river to warm up by the fire. Warmed up and fell into the still low grass.

The day was clear, summer. Scorching heat from above. Near the beast, speckled cuckoo tears bent to the ground.

7 Poskotina - pasture, pasture.

Blue bells dangled from side to side on long crunchy stems, and, probably, only the bees heard them ringing. Near the anthill, on the warmed earth, lay striped gramophone flowers, and bumblebee heads stuck into their blue horns. They froze for a long time, showing shaggy craws - they must have been listening to music. The birch leaves glittered, the aspen tree was dull from the heat. Boyarka finished blooming and littered in the water. The pine tree was in a blue smoke. Above the Yenisei flickered a little. Through this flicker, the red vents of the lime kilns blazing on the other side of the river were barely visible. The forests on the rocks stood motionless, and the railway bridge in the city, visible from our village in clear weather, swayed with thin lace - and if you look at it for a long time, it wore out and the lace was torn.

From there, from behind the bridge, the grandmother should come. What will happen ?! And why did I do that? Why did you obey the Levont'evskys?

How good it was to live! Walk, run and don't think about anything. And now? Maybe the boat will capsize and Grandma will drown? No, it’s better not to overturn. My mother drowned. What good? I am an orphan today. Unhappy person. And there is no one to pity me. Levontius only regrets the drunk, that's all. And the grandmother just shouts yes, no, no and will give in - she will not stay long. And grandfather is gone. He's on the hunt, grandfather. He would not give me offense. The grandmother shouts at him: “Potter! All his life he indulged his own, now this! .. "

"You grandfather, grandfather, if only you came to the bathhouse to wash and take me with you!"

Why are you sniffing? - Sanka bent down to me with a preoccupied look.

Nishtyak! - Sanka consoled me. - Don't go home, that's all! Bury yourself in the hay and hide. Petrovna is afraid - suddenly you will drown. Here she will cry out: "Uto-well-u-ul my child, threw me away, little orphan ..." - you will get out here!

I won't do that! And I won't obey you! ..

Well, the leshak is with you! Well they try to talk about you ... It took a bite! You got a bite!

I fell off Yar 1, stirring up the swifts in the holes, and pulled the fishing rod. I got a perch. Then a ruff. A fish came up, biting began. We baited worms, threw them.

Don't step over the rod! - Sanka shouted superstitiously at the kids who were completely crazed with delight and dragged, dragged the fish.

The kids put them on a willow rod and lowered them into the water.

Suddenly, behind the nearest stone goby, forged poles clicked along the bottom, and a boat appeared from behind the cape. Three men at once threw poles out of the water. Flashing with polished tips, the poles fell into the water at once, and the boat, burying itself up to the very edges into the river, rushed forward, throwing it to the sides of the waves.

The flapping of the poles, the throwing of hands, the push, - the boat jumped up with its bow, quickly moved forward. It is closer, closer ... So the stern pushed the pole, and the boat nodded away from our fishing rods. And then I saw another person sitting on the gazebo. Half-shawls on the head, the ends are passed under the armpits, tied crosswise on the back. Painted under a semi-shelter burgundy color blouse. This jacket was taken out of the chest only on the occasion of a trip to the city or on major holidays.

Yes, it's a grandmother!

I jerked from the rods straight to the hole, jumped, grabbing the grass, shoved thumb legs in a sheared mink. A swift flew up, hit me on the head, and I fell on lumps of clay. He jumped off and started to run along the shore, away from the boat.

8 Yar - here: the steep edge of the ravine.

Where are you going?! Stop! Stop, I say! - shouted the grandmother. I raced with all my might.

I-a-a-a-a-come, I-a-a-a-come home, a swindler! - rushed after me the voice of my grandmother.

And then the men spurred on.

Keep it! - they shouted, and I did not notice how I ended up at the upper end of the village.

Now only I discovered that it was already evening and, willy-nilly, I must return home. But I didn’t want to go home, and just in case I went to my cousin Keshka, my uncle Vanya’s son, who lived here, on the upper edge of the village.

I'm lucky. They played rounders near Uncle Vanya's house. I got into the game and ran until dark. Aunt Fenya, Keshkin's mother, appeared and asked me:

Why aren't you going home? Grandma will lose you!

No, - I answered as cheerful and careless as possible. - She sailed to the city. Maybe spending the night there.

Aunt Fenya offered me something to eat, and I happily grinded everything that she gave me.

And the thin-necked silent Keshka drank boiled milk, and his mother said to him:

Everything with milk and milk. Look how the boy eats, and that is why he is strong.

I already hoped that Aunt Fenya would leave me to spend the night. But she asked, asked me about everything, after which she took my hand and took me home.

There was no more light in the house. Aunt Fenya knocked on the window. Grandmother shouted: "Not locked!" We entered a dark and quiet house, where only the multi-winged tapping of butterflies and the buzzing of flies beating against the glass could be heard.

Aunt Fenya pushed me back into the hallway and pushed me into the closet attached to the hallway. There was a bed of rugs and an old saddle in their heads - in case someone gets hot during the day and wants to rest in the chill.

I buried myself in the rug, and listened quietly.

Aunt Fenya and grandmother were talking about something in the hut. The closet smelled of bran, dust, and dry grass piled in all the cracks and under the ceiling. This grass still clicked and crackled. It was dreary in the closet. The darkness was thick and rough, filled with scent and secret life.

Under the floor, a mouse was scrabbling alone and timidly, starving because of the cat. And all the dry herbs and flowers crackled under the ceiling, opened the boxes and littered the seeds into the darkness.

Silence, coolness and night life... The dogs killed by the heat of the day came to their senses, crawled out from under the entryway, porches, from the kennels and tried their voices. At the bridge that runs across the Malaya River, an accordion sang. Young people gather on the bridge, dance there, sing.

Uncle Levontius was hastily chopping wood. Uncle Levontius must have brought something for the brew. Someone's Levon-Tyevskie "knocked down" the pole ... Most likely, we have. They have time now to hunt for firewood far away! ..

Aunt Fenya left and tightly closed the door in the canopy. The cat slipped furtively down the porch. The mouse subsided under the floor. It became completely dark and lonely. The floorboards did not creak in the hut, the grandmother did not go. I must be tired. I felt cold. I curled up into a ball and began to breathe on my chest.

I woke up from the sunbeam, which made its way through the dull window of the pantry. Dust flashed like gnats in the beam. From somewhere it was applied with a hitch, arable land. I looked around, and my heart jumped with joy: my grandfather's old sheepskin coat was thrown over me. Grandpa arrived at night! The beauty!

In the kitchen, grandmother spoke loudly, indignantly:

Cultured lady, in a hat. He says: "I'll buy all these berries from you." “Please, you are welcome. I say, the miserable little orphan collected berries ... "

Then I fell through the ground together with my grandmother and could no longer make out what she was saying next, because I covered myself with a sheepskin coat, huddled into it in order to die sooner. But it became hot, dull, it became unbearable to breathe, and I opened up.

His always indulged! - the grandmother made a noise. - Now this! And he's already cheating! What will come of it later? Convict will be! The eternal prisoner will be! I'll take the Levont'evskys into circulation! This is their letter! ..

But I didn't give up. The grandmother's niece ran into the house and asked how the grandmother had sailed into the city. Grandmother said that thank God, and immediately began to tell:

My little one! .. What did he do! ..

This morning a lot of people came to us, and my grandmother said to everyone: "And my little one!"

The grandmother walked up and down, watered the cow, drove her out to the shepherd, did her various things, and every time, running past the pantry doors, she shouted:

You are not sleeping, you are not sleeping! I see everything!

"A horse with a pink mane." Artist T. Mazurin

Grandfather turned in the closet, pulled out the leather reins from under me and winked: nothing, they say, do not be shy! I flashed my nose.

My grandfather stroked my head, and so long accumulated tears flowed uncontrollably from my eyes.

What are you, what are you! - my grandfather reassured me, wiping away tears from my face with a big hard hand. - Why are you lying hungry? Ask for forgiveness ... Go, go, - my grandfather gently pushed me in the back.

Holding my pants with one hand, I took the other to my eyes, stepping into the hut, and roared:

I am more ... I am more ... I am more ... '' And I could not say anything further.

Okay, wash and sit down and crack! - still implacable, but already without a thunderstorm, said the grandmother.

I obediently washed my face, wiped myself with a towel for a long time and very carefully, every now and then shuddering from still not passed sobs, and sat down at the table. Grandfather was busy in the kitchen, reeling the reins on his hand, doing something else. Feeling his invisible and reliable support, I took the crumbs from the table and began to eat dry food. Grandmother poured milk into the glass in one fell swoop and set the bowl in front of me with a clatter.

Look, how meek! Look how quiet he is! And he won't ask for milk! ..

My grandfather blinked at me: be patient. I knew without him: God forbid now to contradict my grandmother or do something wrong, not at her discretion. She must be discharged, must express everything that has accumulated in her, must take her soul away.

For a long time my grandmother denounced me and put me to shame. I bellowed again in repentance. She yelled at me again.

But then my grandmother spoke out. My grandfather left somewhere. I sat, smoothing the patch on my pants, pulling the threads out of it. And when he raised his head, he saw in front of him ...

I closed my eyes and opened my eyes again. He closed his eyes again, opened it again. A white horse with a pink mane galloped on a scrapped kitchen table, as if on a vast land with arable land, meadows and roads, on pink hooves.

Take it, take it, what are you looking at? You look, but even when you deceive grandmother ...

How many years have passed since then! How many events have passed! .. And I still cannot forget my grandmother's gingerbread - that wonderful horse with a pink mane.

V.P. Astafiev

Very short summary (in a nutshell)

The boy Vitya was an orphan and lived with his grandmother. Once she sent him for strawberries with the Levont'ev boys, who were considered unsuccessful. My grandmother wanted to sell strawberries in the city, and for work to buy her granddaughter a gingerbread in the form of a horse. When the Levont'ev boys were already picking up the berries, they started a fight and crushed all the strawberries. Then the eldest of them, Sanka, beat him to "weak" in order to eat all the berries. After Viti's cupboard was empty, he filled it with grass, and put berries on top, so it seemed that it was full. The unsuspecting grandmother took his tuesok and left for the city. When she returned, she was so angry that he hid from her. The grandfather persuaded the boy to apologize to her, which he did. Grandma forgave him, and it even turned out that she still brought him a gingerbread.

Summary (in detail)

A boy with his grandmother lived in one Siberian outback on the banks of the Yenisei River. Once she sent him for strawberries with the neighbors' children. She promised to sell the harvested berries in the city and buy him a "gingerbread with a horse." The gingerbread was white in the shape of a horse, covered with pink glaze where the mane, tail, eyes and hooves were. In those days, a boy could only dream of such a gingerbread. He guaranteed honor and respect among the other village kids.

Most often, he played with the Levont'ev guys who lived in the neighborhood. Their father was a former sailor, now a logger, who brought a salary once a month. Then there was a feast in the house. His father loved to drink, and his mother, Vasya's aunt, often borrowed money from neighbors, including the boy's grandmother. My grandmother did not like him to be with them, she called them "proletarians", undignified people. They didn't even have a bathhouse at home, they washed at the neighbors' house all the time. When Uncle Levontius drank a little, sang songs, put the boy at the table, treated him to sweets, pitied him like an orphan, but as soon as he got drunk, everyone ran away at once. Uncle began to swear, break glass in windows, dishes, which he greatly regretted in the morning.

So with Levont'ev's children, he went to the ridge for berries. Enough berries had already been collected when the guys started a fight among themselves. The elder noticed that the younger ones, instead of putting the berries in the dishes, put them in their mouths and began to scold them. In the fight, all the harvested berries crumbled, crumpled and eaten. Then all together decided to go down to the Fokinskaya river, but then they noticed that the boy still had strawberries. Sanka, the most harmful of Levont'ev's guys, incited him to "weakly" eat all the berries. To prove that he was not greedy, the boy poured everything on the grass and said: "Eat!" Himself got only a few crooked, tiny berries with greenery. It was a pity, but what can you do.

The fact that his tuesok was empty, he remember only in the evening. The thought that his grandmother would arrange a report for him and the calculation became scary, but he did not show it. I let myself in important species and he also said that the kalach would steal from her. And he himself was afraid of his grandmother, like fire. Katerina Petrovna, this is not Vasena's aunt, it is not so easy for her to lie. On the way, the Levontievsk children behaved terribly, they made a lot of hooligans. The swallow was killed with a stone, then the fish was torn to pieces for its ugly appearance. They taught the boy to stuff the grass into the cupboard, and put a layer of berries on top so that the grandmother would not guess. And so they did.

Grandmother greeted them joyfully, took a bowl of berries and promised to buy the boy the biggest gingerbread. And he was shaking all over with fear, feeling that the deception would soon be revealed. In addition, Sanka began to say on the street that he would give him up if he didn’t bring him a roll. For his silence, they had to steal more than one roll. The boy suffered all night, did not sleep. In the morning I decided to confess everything, but I did not find my grandmother. She has already left for the city with a "deceit" tuesk. The boy regretted that his grandfather's fortress was far away. It was calm, quiet, and my grandfather would not give him an offense. Soon, out of idleness, he went fishing with Sanka to the river. The eternally hungry children ate the poor catch.

A boat appeared from behind the cape. Grandmother sat in it and shook her fist at him. At home, he hid in the closet and thought about his act, remembered his mother. She once also went to the city to sell berries. One day the boat capsized and she drowned. The next morning my grandfather arrived from the settlement. He advised the boy to talk to his grandmother and ask for forgiveness. Oh, and she put him to shame, denounced deceit, and then put him to breakfast. And she brought him a gingerbread horse, so wonderful with a pink mane. So many years have passed since then, so many events have passed, and he could not forget his grandmother's carrot.

Book Information

Book cover illustration

About the author of the book

Astafiev V.P. (1924-2001)

Victor Astafiev was born in the Krasnoyarsk Territory. The writer's childhood was difficult. The boy was only seven years old when his mother died. She drowned in the Yenisei. In memory of his mother, Lydia Ilyinichna, he will dedicate the story "Pass". Astafyev even visited homeless children, was brought up in an orphanage. Here, kind, intelligent teachers awakened his interest in writing. One of him school essay recognized as the best. This composition has a very characteristic title: "Alive!" Later, the events described in it appeared in the story "Vasyutkino Lake". Of course, in a new form, in a writer's way. In the spring of 1943, worker Viktor Astafyev was already at the front, at the forefront. Military rank- private. And so on until the very victory: a driver, an artillery reconnaissance officer, a signalman. After the war, the future writer changed many professions, rushed about, as he himself says, in different jobs, until in 1951 the first story was published in the Chusovskaya Rabochy newspaper, and he became a newspaper and literary employee. This is where his own creative biography begins. Then he graduated from the Higher Literary Courses. The works created by Astafiev are well known. These are books about war, about peace, about childhood, numerous stories and stories "Pass", "Starodub", "Theft", "Starfall", "Shepherd and Shepherdess", "Last Bow". The work "Tsar-fish. Narration in stories" (1972-1975) became a real event in literature. The author is not a curious collector of geographical information, but a person who, from childhood, has experienced the severe sadness of the northern land and has not forgotten, has not lost faith in its beauty and truth. Much of the story is admirable. Painting, richness of colors, scope, violence and daring of language, gift of realistic description create the highest reliability. The talent for creating characters so colorful and visible that it seems that it is worth going - and you will meet them on the banks of the Yenisei: Akimka, Kolya, Commander, Rumbled ...

The future is children. That is why there is such concern: "Here we are saying: children are happiness, children are joy, children are light in the window! But children are also our torment! Our eternal anxiety! Children are our judgment on the world, our mirror, in which conscience , intelligence, honesty, our neatness - you can barely see everything. Children can hide with us, we can never use them. " Let us recall the story "Ear on Boganida". From the memory of the past, from distant blue spaces, this island of life emerges on the northern land. Post-war time... People live poorly, poorly. With merciless truthfulness Astafiev writes out the life of fishermen. But nowhere, not a single line, does the author appeal to feelings of bitterness and sadness. On the contrary, the story is warmed by love and trust in people of difficult fate, who together, together raised and warmed children, laying healthy, labor morality in their souls. In this the author sees the true course of life. Goodness and justice are directly addressed to the fate of future generations.

Recently, Viktor Petrovich lived at home, in the village of Ovsyanka. He died after a serious illness on November 29, 2001 in Krasnoyarsk, was buried in the village of Ovsyanka.

)

My grandmother came back from the neighbors and told me that the Levontievsk children were going to the ridge for strawberries, and told me to go with them.

Pick up the tuesok. I will take my berries to the city, I will also sell yours and buy you a gingerbread.

Horse, woman?

Horse, horse.

Gingerbread with a horse! Well this is the dream of all village kids. He is white-white, this horse. And his mane is pink, his tail is pink, his eyes are pink, his hooves are also pink. My grandmother never allowed to drag around with pieces of bread. Eat at the table, otherwise it will be bad. But gingerbread is another matter entirely. You can put a gingerbread under a shirt, run and hear how a horse kicks its hooves into a bare stomach. Cold with horror - lost, - to grab his shirt and be happy to be convinced - here he is, here is a horse-fire!

With such a horse, immediately how much honor, attention! The Levont'evskie guys flirt with you this way and that, and they give you the first to hit the siskin, and shoot from the slingshot, so that they would only be allowed to bite off the horse or lick it. When you give Levontievsky Sanka or Tanka a bite, you must hold with your fingers the place where it is supposed to bite off, and hold it tight, otherwise Tanya or Sanka will bite so hard that a tail and a mane will remain of the horse.

Levontiy, our neighbor, worked on badogs together with Mishka Korshukov. Levontius prepared timber for badogs, sawed it, chopped it, and handed it over to the lime factory, which was opposite the village, on the other side of the Yenisei. Once in ten days, or maybe at fifteen, I don't remember exactly - Levontius received money, and then in the next house, where there were only children and nothing else, the feast began like a mountain. Some kind of restlessness, fever, or something, seized not only the Levont'ev house, but all the neighbors. Early in the morning, Aunt Vasenya, the wife of Uncle Levontius, ran to her grandmother, out of breath, hunted down, with rubles clutched in handfuls.

Wait, you freaky! her grandmother called. - You have to count.

Aunt Vasenya meekly returned, and while grandmother was counting the money, she was fingering with her bare feet, an evenly hot horse, ready to jerk as soon as the reins were released.

Grandmother counted thoroughly and for a long time, smoothing out every ruble. As far as I remember, my grandmother never gave Levontikha more than seven or ten rubles from the “reserve” for a rainy day, because this whole “reserve” consisted, it seems, of ten. But even with such a small amount, the zapoloshny Vasenya managed to get short on the ruble, when and for a whole three.

How do you handle money, you eyeless scarecrow! grandmother let herself loose on a neighbor. - A ruble for me, a ruble for another! What will it turn out to be? But Vasenya again tossed the whirlwind with her skirt and rolled off.

I did it!

For a long time my grandmother vilified Levontikha, Levontius himself, who, in her opinion, was not worth bread, but ate wine, beat her hips with her hands, spat, I sat down at the window and looked longingly at the neighbor's house.

He stood by himself, in the open, and nothing prevented him from looking at the white light with somehow glazed windows - not a fence, not a gate, not a platband, not a shutter. Uncle Levontius did not even have a bath, and they, the Levontievs, washed in their neighbors, most often at our place, having brought in water and a supply of firewood from the lime factory.

On one good day, perhaps even in the evening, Uncle Levontius was shaking and, forgetting himself, sung the song of sea wanderers, heard on voyages - he was once a sailor.

A sailor sailed across the akiyan From Africa, I'll lick the Baby, He brought it in a box ...

The family calmed down, listening to the voice of the parent, absorbing a very folding and pitiful song. Our village, in addition to streets, posadov and lanes, is also tailored and built in a song-like manner - every family, every family name had its "own", signature song, which more deeply and more fully expressed the feelings of this and no other kindred. To this day, when I remember the song "The Monk Loved a Beauty," I can see Bobrovsky Lane and all the Bobrovskys, and goose bumps run down my skin from shock. My heart trembles, squeezes from the song of the "chess tribe": "I was sitting at the window, my God, and the rain was falling on me." And how to forget Fokin's, tearing soul: "I was in vain to break the bars, in vain I escaped from prison, my dear, dear little wife lies on another's chest", or my beloved uncle: "Once in a cozy room", or in memory of my deceased mother singing to this day: "You tell me, sister ..." But where do you remember everything and everyone? The village was large, the people were vociferous, brave, and the relatives in the knees were deep and wide.

But all our songs slipped over the roof of the settler of Uncle Levontius - none of them could disturb the fossilized soul of the fighting family, and here on you, the Levontiev eagles trembled, there must have been a drop or two of sailor's, vagrant blood tangled in the veins of children, and she -that eroded their stamina, and when the children were full, did not fight and did not destroy anything, one could hear how a friendly chorus spilled out through the broken windows and the open doors:

She sits, yearning All the night long And sings a song like this About the homeland: "In the warm, warm south, In my homeland, Friends live, grow up And there are no people at all ..."

Uncle Levontius drilled the song with a bass, added a roar to it, and that is why the song, the guys, and he himself seemed to change their appearance, they became more beautiful and cohesive, and then the river of life in this house flowed in a calm, even channel. Aunt Vasenya, a man of intolerable sensitivity, having watered her face and chest with tears, howling into an old burnt apron, spoke out about human irresponsibility - she grabbed some kind of drunken oglamon licks, dragged her from her homeland for goodness knows why and for what? And here, poor, she sits and yearns all night long ... And, throwing herself up, she suddenly glared at her husband with wet eyes - wasn’t he, wandering around the world, done this black thing ?! Didn't he whistle the licks? He's drunk, he doesn't know what he's doing!

Uncle Levontius, repentantly accepting all the sins that can be pinned on a drunk person, wrinkled his forehead, trying to understand: when and why did he take a monkey from Africa? And, if he took it away, snatched the animal, then where did it go afterwards?

In the spring, the Levont'ev family was picking a little ground around the house, erecting a fence of poles, twigs, old planks. But in winter all this gradually disappeared in the womb of the Russian stove, which was opened in the middle of the hut.

Tanya Levontievskaya used to say so, making a noise with her toothless mouth, about all their establishment:

But as a tyaty whispers us - you run and do not zapeshsha.

Uncle Levontius himself went out into the street on warm evenings in trousers held on a single copper button with two eagles, in a coarse calico shirt, without buttons at all. He would sit on a block of wood, which represented a porch, which was worn out with an ax, smoked, looked, and if my grandmother reproached him at the window for being idle, listed the work that, in her mind, he should have done in the house and around the house, Uncle Levontius would scratch himself complacently.

I, Petrovna, love the settlement! - and drew his hand around him:

OK! Like the sea! Nothing will oppress the eyes!

Uncle Levontius loved the sea, and I loved it. The main goal of my life was to break into Levontius's house after his paycheck, listen to a song about a little monkey and, if necessary, pull up a mighty choir. Sneaking away isn't easy. Grandma knows all my habits in advance.

There is no need to look out the pieces, - she thundered. - There is nothing to eat these proletarians, they themselves have a louse on a lasso in their pockets.

But if I managed to sneak out of the house and get to the Levont'evskys, that's all, here I was surrounded by rare attention, here I am a complete holiday.

Get out of here! - the drunken uncle Levontius strictly ordered one of his boys. And while one of them reluctantly got out from the table, he explained to the children his strict action in an already limp voice: - He is an orphan, and you are all with your parents! - And, looking at me pitifully, he bellowed: - Mother, do you at least remember? I nodded in the affirmative. Uncle Levontius sadly leaned on his arm, rubbed tears down his face with his fist, remembering; - Badogi with her for one year injected-and-and! - And completely bursting into tears: - Whenever you come ... night-midnight ... propa ... your lost head, Levontius, will say and ... get drunk ...

Aunt Vasenya, the children of Uncle Levontius and I roared with them, and it became so pitiful in the hut, and such kindness enveloped the people that everything spilled out and fell out on the table and everyone vied with each other to treat me and ate themselves through strength, then they dragged on the song, and tears flowed like a river, and after that I dreamed of a miserable monkey for a long time.

Late in the evening or already at night, Uncle Levontius asked the same question: "What is zhist ?!" After that I grabbed gingerbread cookies, sweets, the Levontievskie kids also grabbed whatever came under their hands and scattered in all directions.

Vasenya asked the last move, and my grandmother greeted her until morning. Levontius smashed the remains of the glass in the windows, swore, thundered, cried.

The next morning, he glazed the windows with fragments, repaired the benches, the table and, full of darkness and remorse, went to work. Three or four days later Vasenya's aunt again walked around the neighbors and no longer whipped up a whirlwind with her skirt, again borrowed money, flour, potatoes until she got paid - whatever she had to do.

It was with the eagles of Uncle Levontius that I went out for strawberries to earn a gingerbread by my labor. The children carried glasses with broken edges, old, half-torn for kindling, birch bark tuyeski, crickets tied around the throat with twine, who had ladles without handles. The boys freed themselves, fought, threw dishes at each other, set the steps, once or twice they started to fight, cried, teased. On the way, they jumped into someone's garden, and, since nothing was ripe there yet, they layered the onion-batun, ate themselves to green saliva, and threw the rest. We left a few feathers on the whistles. They squeaked and danced at the bitten feathers, we walked merrily to the music, and we soon came to a stony ridge. Then everyone stopped indulging, scattered through the forest and began to take strawberries, just ripening, white-sided, rare and therefore especially joyful and expensive.

I took it diligently and soon covered the bottom of a neat little glass for two or three.

Grandma said: the main thing in berries is to close the bottom of the vessel. I sighed with relief and began to pick strawberries as soon as possible, and there were more and more of them higher up the ridge.

The Levontievsk children walked quietly at first. The lid tied to the brass teapot only tinkled. The older boy had this kettle, and he rattled so that we could hear that the elder was nearby, and we had nothing to be afraid of.

Suddenly the teapot lid rattled nervously, and there was a fuss.

Eat, huh? Eat, huh? Why go home? Why go home? - asked the elder and gave someone a cuff after each question.

A-ha-ha-haaa! - Tanya sang. - Shanka shazhral, ​​dak nicho-o-o ...

Sanka was also hit. He got angry, threw the bowl and fell into the grass. The elder took, took the berries and thought: he is trying for the house, and those out there, parasites, are eating berries or are lying on the grass at all. The elder jumped up and kicked Sanka again. Sanka howled, rushed at the elder. The kettle rang, berries spurted out of it. The heroic brothers are fighting, rolling on the ground, crushed all the strawberries.

After the fight, the elder's hands dropped too. He began to collect the spilled, crushed berries - and into their mouth, into their mouth.

It means that you can, but it means that I can’t! You can, but I, therefore, can not? he asked ominously, until he ate everything he could collect.

Soon the brothers somehow imperceptibly reconciled, stopped calling names and decided to go down to the Fokinskaya river, to splash.

I also wanted to go to the river, I would also like to splash, but I did not dare to leave, because I had not yet collected a full vessel.

Grandmother Petrovna was frightened! Oh you! - Sanka grimaced and called me a nasty word. He knew a lot of these words. I also knew, learned to speak them from the Levont'ev guys, but I was afraid, maybe hesitated to use swearing and timidly declared:

But my grandmother will buy a gingerbread with a horse!

Maybe a mare? - Sanka smiled, spat at his feet and immediately realized something; - Better say - you're afraid of her and still greedy!

Do you want to eat all the berries? - I said this and immediately repented, I realized that I was caught. Scratched, with bumps on his head from fights and various other reasons, with chicks on his hands and feet, with red bloodied eyes, Sanka was more harmful and angrier than all the Levontiev guys.

Weak! - he said.

I'm weak! - I swore, looking askance at the tuesok. There were berries already above the middle. - I'm weak ?! - I repeated in a dying voice and, in order not to pass up, not to be cowardly, not to be disgraced, I resolutely shook the berries out onto the grass: - Here! Eat with me!

The Levont'ev horde piled up, the berries instantly disappeared. I only got a few tiny, bent green berries. Sorry for the berries. Sad. Longing in the heart - it foresees a meeting with grandmother, a report and calculation. But I put on despair, gave up on everything - now it's all the same. I rushed along with the Levont'ev children downhill, to the river, and boasted:

I'll steal a roll from my grandmother!

The guys encouraged me, act, they say, and carry more than one roll, grab another shaneg or a pie - nothing superfluous will be.

We ran along the shallow river, splashed with icy water, overturned the slabs and with our hands caught the sculpin - the peep. Sanka grabbed this disgusting-looking fish, compared it to a shame, and we tore the pish-bearer to pieces on the shore for its ugly appearance. Then they shot stones at the flying birds, knocked down the white belly. We soldered the swallow with water, but it let blood into the river, could not swallow water and died, dropping its head. We buried a little white, flower-like bird on the shore, in pebbles, and soon forgot about it, because we were engaged in an exciting, terrible business: we ran into the mouth of a cold cave, where an evil spirits lived (it was known for certain in the village). Sanka ran farthest into the cave - even the evil spirits did not take him!

This is still human! - Sanka boasted, returning from the cave. - I would continue to escape, into the block of escape ba, but I am barefoot, there is death of kites.

Zhmeev ?! - Tanya stepped back from the mouth of the cave and pulled up her falling pants just in case.

I saw the housekeeper with the brownie, - Sanka continued to tell.

Cracker! Brownies in the attic live under the stove! - cut Sanka as a senior.

Sanka was confused, but immediately challenged the elder:

Duck tama what kind of brownie? Home. And then caveman. The moss is all gray, trembling - it is cold to him. And the housewife is thin, thin, looks plaintively and groans. You can't beckon me, just come and grab it and devour it. I put a stone in her eye! ..

Maybe Sanka was lying about the brownies, but it was still scary to listen to, it seemed that very close in the cave someone was groaning and groaning. The first to pull from the poor place was Tanka, followed by the rest of the guys fell from the mountain. Sanka whistled, yelled like an ugly one, giving us a heat.

We spent the whole day so interesting and fun, and I completely forgot about the berries, but it was time to return home. We took apart the dishes hidden under the tree.

Katerina Petrovna will ask you! Will ask! - Sanka laughed. We ate the berries! Ha ha! They ate it deliberately! Ha ha! Nishtyak for us! Ha ha! And you, ho, ho! ..

I myself knew that for them, Levont'evsky, "ha-ha!", And for me, "ho-ho!" My grandmother, Katerina Petrovna, is not Vasya's aunt; you cannot get rid of her with lies, tears and various excuses.

I walked quietly after the Levont'ev guys from the forest. They ran ahead of me in a crowd, drove a bucket without a handle along the road. The ladle clinked, bounced on the stones, the remains of the enamel bounced off of it.

Do you know what? - After talking with the brothers, Sanka returned to me. - You push the herbs into the tues, on top of the berries - and you're done! Oh, my child! - began to mimic my grandmother Sanka with precision. - I gave you a memory, an orphan, help-il. And the demon Sanka winked at me, and rushed on, down the hill, home.

And I stayed.

The voices of the children died down under the ridge, behind the gardens, it became terrifying. True, you can hear the village here, but nevertheless the taiga, a cave nearby, in it a housewife with a brownie, snakes are teeming with. I sighed, sighed, almost burst into tears, but I had to listen to the forest, the grass, whether the brownies were getting out of the cave. There is no time to whimper. Keep your ears open here. I tore a handful of grass, and I myself looked around. I stuffed a tight little grass with grass, on a bull-calf, so that I could see it closer to the light and at home, I collected several handfuls of berries, laid the grass with them - it turned out strawberries even with a shock.

My child! - screamed the grandmother, when I, freezing with fear, handed her the vessel. - Help you, help you! I'll buy you a gingerbread, the biggest one. And I will not pour your berries to my own, I will take away right in this tuyeska ...

Relieved a little.

I thought that now my grandmother would discover my fraud, give me what she was supposed to, and was already preparing for punishment for the atrocity he had done. But nothing happened. Everything worked out. My grandmother took the cupboard to the basement, once again praised me, gave me something to eat, and I thought that I had nothing to fear and life was not so bad.

I ate, went outside to play, and there it pulled me to inform Sanka about everything.

And I'll tell Petrovna! And I'll tell you! ..

Don't, Sanka!

Bring a roll, then I won't tell you.

I sneaked into the closet, took out a roll from the chest and brought it to Sanka, under a shirt. Then he brought another, then another, until Sanka got drunk.

“I cheated my grandmother. Kalachi stole! What will happen? " - I was tormented at night, tossing and turning on the beds. Sleep did not take me, the "Andelese" peace did not condescend to my gigane, on my varnacha soul, although my grandmother, having crossed herself for the night, wished me not some, but the most "Andele", quiet sleep.

Why are you crawling there? the grandmother asked hoarsely from the darkness. - I suppose wandered in the river again? Do your legs hurt again?

Nope, - I replied. - I had a dream ...

Sleep with God! Sleep, don't be afraid. Life is worse than dreams, father ...

"And what if you get off the bed, crawl under the blanket with your grandmother and tell everything?"

I listened. The old man's labored breathing came from below. It's a pity to wake up, grandmother is tired. She has to get up early. No, I'd rather not sleep until the morning, I'll scaraul my grandmother, I'll tell you about everything: about the little house, and about the housewife with the brownie, and about the rolls, and about everything, about everything ...

This decision made me feel better, and I did not notice how my eyes closed. Sanka's unwashed mug appeared, then a forest, grass, strawberries flashed, she filled up Sanka, and everything that I saw during the day.

There was a smell of pine forest on the floors, a cold mysterious cave, the river rumbled at your feet and fell silent ...

Grandfather was at a hut, about five kilometers from the village, at the mouth of the Mana River. There we have sown a strip of rye, a strip of oats and buckwheat, and a large paddock planted with potatoes. At that time, talk about collective farms was just beginning, and our villagers were still living alone. I loved to visit my grandfather at the hut. Calmly with him there, in detail, no oppression and supervision, run even until nightfall. Grandfather never made any noise at anyone, he worked unhurriedly, but very dull and pliable.

Ah, if only the capture was closer! I would leave, hide. But five kilometers for me was then an insurmountable distance. And Alyosha is not there to get away with him. Recently, August's aunt came and took Alyoshka with her to the forest site where she went to work.

I wandered about, wandered about the empty hut and could think of nothing else how to approach the Levontievskys.

Petrovna has sailed away! - grinned Sanka and spit into the hole between the front teeth. He could have one more tooth in this hole, and we were crazy about this Sankin's hole. How he spit into her!

Sanka was going fishing, untangling the line. His little brothers and sisters pushed alongside, wandered around the benches, crawled, waddled on crooked legs.

Sanka handed out cracks to the right and to the left - the little ones crawled under the arm, confused the line.

There is no hook, - he grunted angrily, - must have swallowed someone.

Nishtya-ak! - Sanka reassured me. - Digest. You have a lot of hooks, give it. I'll take you with me.

I rushed home, grabbed my fishing rods, stuffed the bread in my pocket, and we went to the stone bulls, for the cattle that descended directly into the Yenisei along the ravine.

There was no older house. His father took him with him to "badogi", and Sanka recklessly commanded. Since he was the eldest today and felt a great responsibility, he didn’t bully in vain and, moreover, pacified the “people” if they started a dump.

At the gobies, Sanka put fishing rods, made worms, pecked at them and "from his hand" threw the fishing line so that he could throw further - everyone knows: the further and deeper, the more fish and the larger it is.

Sha! - Sanka goggled, and we obediently froze. It didn't bite for a long time. We got tired of waiting, started pushing, giggling, teasing. Sanka endured, endured and drove us to look for sorrel, coastal garlic, wild radish, otherwise, they say, he cannot vouch for himself, otherwise he will snap it to all of us. Levont'ev's guys knew how to soak themselves "from the earth", ate everything that God sent, did not disdain anything, and that is why they were red-headed, strong, dexterous, especially at the table.

Without us, Sanka really pecked at it. While we were collecting greens suitable for grub, he pulled out two ruffs, a gudgeon and a white-eyed fir tree. They made a fire on the shore. Sanka picked up fish on sticks, adapted them to fry, the children surrounded the fire and did not take their eyes off the roast. “Sa-an! - they whined soon. - It's already cooked! Sa-an! .. "

W-well, breakthroughs! W-well, breakthroughs! Can't you see that the ruff yawns with gills? Toko would gobble up poskoreich. Well, how will you grab a belly, are you going diarrhea? ..

Vitka Katerinin has diarrhea. We have no-et.

What did I say ?!

The fighting eagles fell silent. With Sanka it doesn't hurt to divorce the Turus, he just sticks it out. Small ones tolerate, throw their noses; they strive to cope with the fire. However, patience does not last long.

Well, Sa-an, there is really coal ...

Choke!

The guys grabbed sticks with fried fish, tore them on the fly and on the fly, moaning from the hot, ate them almost raw, without salt and bread, ate them and looked around in bewilderment: already ?! We waited so much, suffered so much and just licked our lips. My children also imperceptibly grinded bread and did something: they pulled out the coastal minks from their holes, “blinded” with stone slabs on the water, tried to swim, but the water was still cold, quickly jumped out of the river to warm up by the fire. They warmed up and fell into the still low grass, so as not to see Sanka frying the fish, now for himself, now it's his turn, and then don't ask for a grave. He will not give, because he himself loves to devour more than anyone else.

The day was clear, summer. Scorching heat from above. Near the beast, the pockmarked cuckoo's shoes bent to the ground. Blue bells dangled from side to side on long crunchy stems, and, probably, only the bees heard them ringing. On the warmed ground near the anthill lay striped gramophone flowers, and bumblebee heads stuck into their blue horns. They froze for a long time, exposing their shaggy backs, must have listened to the music. The birch leaves glittered, the aspen tree was dull from the heat, the pine forest along the ridge was covered in blue smoke. The sun was shimmering over the Yenisei. Through this flicker, the red vents of the lime kilns blazing on the other side of the river were barely visible. The shadows of the rocks lay motionless on the water, and the light opened them, tore them to shreds like old rags. The railway bridge in the city, visible from our village in clear weather, swayed with thin lace, and if you look at it for a long time, the lace was getting thinner and torn.

From there, from behind the bridge, the grandmother should come. What will happen! And why did I do that? Why did you obey the Levont'evskys? Look how good it was to live. Walk, run, play and don't think about anything. Now what? There is nothing to hope for now. Is that what an accidental deliverance. Maybe the boat will capsize and Grandma will drown? No, it’s better not to overturn. Mom drowned. What good? I am an orphan today. Unhappy person. And there is no one to pity me. Only the drunken Levontius regrets and even the grandfather - and that's it, the grandmother just screams, yet no, no, yes, she will not stay with her. The main thing is that there is no grandfather. Grandfather is on the hunt. He would not give me offense. The grandmother shouts at him: “Potter! I have been treating my people all my life, now this! .. "" You are a grandfather, grandpa, even if you came to the bathhouse to wash, even if you just come and take me with you! "

Why are you sniffing? - Sanka bent down to me with a preoccupied look.

Nishtya-ak! - Sanka consoled me. - Don't go home, that's all! Bury yourself in the hay and hide. Petrovna saw your mother's eyes ajar when she was buried. Afraid - you will drown too. Here she will cry out: “Drown-u-ul, my child, threw me away, little orphan,” - you’ll get out here! ..

I won't do that! I protested. - And I will not obey you! ..

Well, the leshak is with you! They are trying about you. In! It took a bite! You got a bite!

I fell off the ravine, alarming the banks in the holes, and pulled the fishing rod. I got a perch. Then a ruff. A fish came up, biting began. We baited worms, threw them.

Don't step over the rod! - Sanka shouted superstitiously at the kids who were completely crazed with delight and dragged, dragged the fish. The boys put them on a willow twig, dipped them into the water and shouted at each other: "Who say - don't cross the line ?!"

Suddenly, behind the nearest stone goby, forged poles clicked along the bottom, a boat appeared from behind the cape. Three men at once threw poles out of the water. Flashing with polished tips, the poles fell into the water at once, and the boat, burying itself along the contours into the river, rushed forward, throwing it to the sides of the wave. The flapping of the poles, the shifting of arms, the push - the boat jumped forward, bounced forward. She's closer, closer. So the stern moved with the pole, and the boat nodded away from our fishing rods. And then I saw another person sitting on the gazebo. Half-shawls on the head, the ends are passed under the armpits and tied crosswise on the back. A jacket painted in burgundy color under the half-bed. This jacket was taken out of the chest on big holidays and on the occasion of a trip to the city.

I darted from the rods to the hole, jumped, grabbed the grass, thrusting my big toe into the hole. A coastal girl flew up, hit me on the head, I fell out of fright on lumps of clay, jumped up and ran along the shore, away from the boat.

Where are you going! Stop! Stop, I say! - shouted the grandmother.

I raced with all my might.

I-a-avishsha, I-avishsha home, scammer!

The men gave in to the heat.

Keep it! - shouted from the boat, and I did not notice how I ended up at the upper end of the village, where the shortness of breath, always tormenting me, disappeared! I rested for a long time and soon found the evening was approaching - willy-nilly it was necessary to return home. But I didn't want to go home, and just in case I went to my cousin Kesha, uncle Vanya's son, who lived here, on the upper edge of the village.

I'm lucky. They played rounders near Uncle Vanya's house. I got into the game and ran until dark. Aunt Fenya, Keshkin's mother, appeared and asked me:

Why aren't you going home? Grandma will lose you.

No, - I replied as carelessly as possible. - She sailed to the city. Maybe spending the night there.

Aunt Fenya offered me something to eat, and I happily grinded everything that she gave me, thin-necked Kesha drank boiled milk, and his mother reproached him:

All with milk and milk. Look how the boy eats, that's why he is strong as a boletus mushroom. - Aunt Fenin's praise looked to me, and I began to quietly hope that she would leave me to spend the night.

But Aunt Fenya asked, asked me about everything, after which she took my hand and took me home.

There was no light in our hut. Aunt Fenya knocked on the window. "Not locked!" - shouted the grandmother. We entered a dark and quiet house, where only the multi-winged tapping of butterflies and the buzzing of flies beating against the glass could be heard.

Aunt Fenya pushed me back into the hallway, pushed me into the closet attached to the hallway. There was a bed of rugs and an old saddle in their heads - in case someone was overtaken by the heat during the day and he wanted to rest in the chill.

I buried myself in the rug, and listened quietly.

Aunt Fenya and grandmother were talking about something in the hut, but about which they could not make out. The closet smelled of bran, dust, and dry grass piled in all the cracks and under the ceiling. This grass kept clicking and crackling. It was dreary in the closet. The darkness was thick, rough, filled with odors and secret life. Under the floor, lonely and timidly, a mouse was scratching, starving for the cat. And everyone crackled dry herbs and flowers under the ceiling, opened boxes, littered seeds into the darkness, two or three got tangled in my stripes, but I did not pull them out, fearing to move.

Silence, coolness and nightlife were established in the village. The dogs killed by the heat of the day came to their senses, climbed out from under the entryway, porches, from the kennels and tried their voices. At the bridge that was laid across the Fokinskaya river, an accordion sang. Young people gather on the bridge, dance there, sing, scare the late kids and shy girls.

Uncle Levontius was hastily chopping wood. The owner must have brought something for the brew. Someone's Levont'evskie "knocked off" a pole? Most likely with us. There is time for them to hunt for firewood at such a time ...

Aunt Fenya left and closed the door in the canopy tightly. The cat slipped furtively to the porch. The mouse subsided under the floor. It became completely dark and lonely. The floorboards did not creak in the hut, the grandmother did not go. Tired. Not a short way to the city! Eighteen miles, but with a knapsack. It seemed to me that if I feel sorry for my grandmother, think well of her, she will guess about it and forgive me everything. Will come and forgive. Well, once and click, so what a trouble! For such a thing, and more than once you can ...

However, the grandmother did not come. I felt cold. I curled up in a ball and breathed on my chest, thinking about my grandmother and all that was pitiful.

When my mother drowned, my grandmother did not leave the shore, they could not carry her away or persuade her with the whole world. She kept clicking and calling her mother, threw crumbs of bread, silver pieces, and shreds into the river, tore her hair out of her head, tied it around her finger and let it flow, hoping to appease the river, to propitiate the Lord.

Only on the sixth day, the grandmother, who had blossomed in body, was almost dragged home. She, as if drunk, muttered something deliriously, her hands and head almost reached the ground, the hair on her head unraveled, hung over her face, clung to everything and remained in shreds on the weeds. on poles and on rails.

Grandmother fell in the middle of the hut on the bare floor, her arms outstretched, and so she slept, not undressed, in short legs, as if she was floating somewhere, not uttering a rustle or sound, and could not swim. In the house they spoke in whispers, walked on tiptoe, fearfully bent over their grandmother, thinking that she was dead. But from the depths of grandmother's gut, through clenched teeth, there was a continuous groan, as if something or someone there, in grandmother, was crushed, and it was tormented by unrelenting, burning pain.

Grandmother woke up from sleep immediately, looked around, as if after fainting, and began to pick up her hair, weave it into a braid, holding a rag for tying the braids in her teeth. Businesslike and simply didn’t say, but she gasped out: “No, I don’t get through to Lydenka, I don’t get through. The river does not give it away. Close somewhere, very close it holds, but does not give away and does not show ... "

And my mother was close. She was pulled under a floatable boom against Vassa Vakhrameevna's hut, she caught her scythe with the boom's sling and dangled and dangled there until her hair was unlocked and the braid was torn off. So they suffered: mother in the water, grandmother on the shore, they were tormented by terrible torment for some unknown whose grave sins ...

My grandmother found out and told me when I grew up that eight people of desperate Ovsyansky women were packed into a small dugout boat and one man at the stern - our Kolcha junior. The women are all bargaining, mostly with berries - strawberries, and when the boat capsized, a bright red streak rushed across the water, widening, and the raftsmen from the boat, rescuing people, shouted: “Blood! Blood! Smashed someone about Bon ... ”But strawberries floated down the river. Mom also had a crunch of strawberries, and a scarlet trickle merged with the red stripe. Maybe my mother's blood from hitting her head on the Bon was there, flowing and curling along with the strawberries in the water, but who knows who can tell red from red in panic, in vanity and screams?

I woke up from a sunbeam seeping into the dull window of the closet and poking my eyes. Dust flashed like gnats in the beam. From somewhere it was applied with a catch, arable land. I looked around, and my heart jumped with joy: my grandfather's old sheepskin coat was thrown over me. Grandpa arrived at night. The beauty! In the kitchen, my grandmother told someone in detail:

- ... A cultured lady, in a hat. "I'll buy all these berries." Please, you are welcome. I say, the miserable little orphan collected berries ...

Then I fell through the ground together with my grandmother and could no longer and did not want to make out what she was saying next, because I covered myself with a sheepskin coat, huddled into it in order to die as soon as possible. But it got hot, dull, there was nothing to breathe, and I opened up.

His always indulged! - the grandmother thundered. - Now this! And they are cheating! What will come of it later? Zhigan will be! Eternal prisoner! I’m more of the Levont'evskys, stain them, I’ll take them into circulation! This is their letter! ..

My grandfather got out into the yard, out of harm's way, bales something under a canopy. Grandmother cannot be alone for a long time, she needs to tell someone about the incident or smash the swindler to smithereens, therefore, me, and she quietly walked through the hallway, opened the door to the closet. I barely had time to close my eyes tightly.

You are not sleeping, you are not sleeping! I see everything!

But I didn't give up. Aunt Avdotya ran into the house and asked how "theta" had sailed into the city. The grandmother said that “I rafted, thank You, Lord, I sold the berries in a similar way,” and immediately began to narrate:

My something! Small something! What have you done! .. Listen, listen, girl!

This morning a lot of people came to us, and my grandmother kept them all in order to tell: “And my something! Small something! " And this did not in the least interfere with her household chores - she rushed back and forth, milked the cow, drove her out to the shepherd, shook out the rugs, did her various things, and every time, running past the pantry doors, she did not forget to remind:

You are not sleeping, you are not sleeping! I can see everything!

My grandfather wrapped me in the closet, pulled the leather reins from under me and winked:

"Never mind, they say, be patient and don't be shy!", And even stroked my head. I shuffled my nose and the tears that had been accumulating for so long with a berry, large strawberries, stain it, fell out of my eyes, and they had no control whatsoever.

Well, what are you, what are you? - my grandfather reassured me, wiping away tears from my face with a big hand. - Why are you lying hungry? Ask for a petition ... Go, go, - my grandfather gently pushed me in the back.

Holding my pants with one hand, pressing the other with my elbow to my eyes, I stepped into the hut and started:

I am more ... I am more ... I am more ... - and could not say anything further.

Okay, wash your face and sit down to crack! - still implacable, but already without a thunderstorm, without thunders, my grandmother cut me off. I obediently washed my face, drove a damp handmaid over my face for a long time and remembered that lazy people, according to my grandmother's assurance, always wipe themselves damp, because everyone gets up later. I had to move to the table, sit down, look at people. Oh, Lord! Yes, so that I cheat at least once! Yes I…

Shuddering with sobs that still hadn't passed, I clung to the table. My grandfather was busy in the kitchen, unwinding an old rope, completely, I realized, unnecessary to him, pulled out something from the battens, took out an ax from under the chicken coop, tried the point with his finger. He seeks and finds trouble, so as not to leave the hapless grandson alone with the "general" - as he calls his grandmother in his hearts or in mockery. Feeling the invisible but reliable support of my grandfather, I took the crumbs from the table and began to eat it dry. Grandmother splashed the milk in one fell swoop, put the bowl in front of me with a clatter and put her hips on her hips:

The belly hurts, looks at the edge! Eh, how humble you are! Eh, how quiet you are! And he won't ask for milk! ..

My grandfather blinked at me - be patient. I knew without him: God forbid now to contradict my grandmother, which is not at her discretion. She must be discharged and must express everything that has accumulated in her heart, she must take her soul away and calm her down. And my grandmother put me to shame! And she denounced! Only now, having fully understood what a bottomless abyss rogue had plunged me into and what kind of "crooked path" it would take me, if I started to play ball so early, if I reached out for robbery after the dashing people, I began to bellow, not just repenting, but afraid that he was gone, that there is no forgiveness, no return ...

Even my grandfather could not stand my grandmother's speeches and my complete remorse. Gone. He left, disappeared, smoking a cigarette, they say, I can neither help nor control, God help you, granddaughters ...

Grandmother was tired, exhausted, and maybe she sensed that she was too much to destroy me.

It was calm in the hut, but still hard. Not knowing what to do, how to live on, I smoothed the patch on my pants, pulled the threads out of it. And when he raised his head, he saw in front of him ...

I closed my eyes and opened my eyes again. He closed his eyes again, opened it again. A white horse with a pink mane galloped on a scraped kitchen table, as if on a huge land, with arable land, meadows and roads, on pink hooves.

Take it, take it, what are you looking at? You look, but even when you omman the baushka ...

How many years have passed since then! How many events have passed. There is no grandfather alive, no grandmother, and my life is on the decline, and I still cannot forget grandmother's gingerbread - that wonderful horse with a pink mane.

In this article we will talk about the story "The Horse with the Pink Mane." Astafiev Viktor Petrovich, the author of the work, has long entered school curriculum... The writer often referred to village theme... These stories include the one we are considering. In the article, we will take a closer look at the images of the main characters of the work and its summary.

The structure and brief description of the story

The story is told in the first person. With the help of colloquial speech, he reproduces the unique Siberian dialect of Astafiev. "Horse with a Pink Mane", the main characters of which are distinguished by their original speech, full of dialectisms, is also rich in figurative descriptions of nature: the habits of animals and birds, rustles and sounds of the forest, river landscapes.

Now let's talk about the structure of the work:

• The plot - the narrator with other children goes to the forest for strawberries.
• Climax - the main character steals rolls and deceives grandmother.
• The denouement - the narrator is forgiven and rewarded with a gingerbread "horse".

Astafiev, "A horse with a pink mane": a summary

The grandmother sends the narrator with the neighbour's children for strawberries to the ridge. If the hero picks up a hollow basket, then she will buy him a reward - "gingerbread with a horse." This gingerbread, made in the shape of a horse with a tail, mane and hooves in pink glaze, was the cherished dream of all village boys and promised them honor and respect.

The narrator goes to fetch strawberries with the children of Levontius, their neighbor who worked as a logger. Depicts Astafiev village inhabitants of different standards of living and prosperity ("A Horse with a Pink Mane"). The main characters and his family are very different from Levont'ev's. So, every 15 days, when Levontius received a salary, a real feast began in their family, where usually there was nothing. And Vasena, Levontius's wife, ran and distributed debts. At such a time, the narrator tried at all costs to get into the neighbor's house. There he was pitied like an orphan and treated to goodies. But the grandmother did not let her grandson, she does not want him to communicate with the Levontievskys. However, the money quickly ran out, and after a couple of days Vasena was running around the village again, already borrowing.

The Levont'ev family lived in poverty, they didn't even have their own baths. And the tyn, built every spring, was dismantled for kindling in the fall.

In the meantime, the main characters went to pick the berries. Astafiev ("Horse with a Pink Mane" in this respect is a very revealing work) depicts not only social differences between families, but also moral ones. When the narrator had already collected an almost full basket of strawberries, the Levontievskys started a quarrel over the fact that the younger children ate the berries instead of picking them. A fight broke out, and all the strawberries were poured out of the dishes, and then they ate. After that, the guys went to the Fokinskaya river. And then it turned out that our hero had a whole berry left. Then Sanka, the eldest Levont'ev boy, incited the narrator to eat her, taking her "weakly."

It was only in the evening that the narrator remembered that his cupboard was empty. He was scared to return home with empty handed... Then Sanka "suggested" what to do - put herbs in the dish and sprinkle it with berries.

The deception is revealed

So, now we can answer the question of which are the main characters of the story. VP Astafiev, as it is not difficult to see, focuses not only on the narrator. Therefore, we can also rank Sanka and grandmother among the main characters.

But back to the story. The grandmother praised her grandson for the rich prey and decided not to pour the strawberries - and to sell them. Sanka was waiting for the narrator on the street, who demanded payment for his silence - kalachi. The narrator had to steal them from the closet until the neighbor's boy ate. At night, his conscience did not allow the hero to sleep, and he decided to tell everything to his grandmother in the morning.

But the grandmother left before the main character of the story "The Horse with the Pink Mane" woke up. Vitya went fishing with Sanka. There, from the shore, they saw a boat on which the grandmother was sailing, threatening her grandson with her fist.

The narrator returned home late in the evening and went to sleep in the closet. The next morning, the grandfather returned from the settlement, who ordered to ask for forgiveness from the grandmother. Having chided the hero, Katerina Petrovna made him sit down for breakfast. And she brought him a gingerbread, that very “horse”, the memory of which remained with the hero for many years.

The protagonist of the story "Horse with a Pink Mane"

The main character of the work is Vitya. This boy lost his mother and now lives in a Siberian village with his grandparents. Despite the difficult times for the family, he was always shod, dressed, well-fed and well-groomed, because both his grandmother and grandfather took care of him. Vitya was friends with Levont'ev's children, which Katerina Petrovna did not like, since the latter were poorly educated and hooligans.

All the main characters are very expressive. Astafiev ("Horse with a Pink Mane") depicted them with their own unique features. Therefore, the reader immediately sees how Vitya differs from Levont'ev's children. Unlike them, he thinks not only of himself, he knows what responsibility and conscience are. Vitya is well aware that he is doing wrong, and this torments him. While Sanka is just taking advantage of the situation to fill his stomach.

Therefore, the incident with the gingerbread so shocked the boy that he was remembered for his whole life.

Grandmother image

So, what are the other main characters of the story? V.P. Astafiev, of course, devotes great importance the image of Katerina Petrovna, Viti's grandmother. She is a representative of the past generation, very sociable and talkative, thorough and reasonable, thrifty. When Vasena tries to give more money than she borrowed, her grandmother reprimands her, says that this is not the way to handle money.

Katerina Petrovna loves her grandson very much, but brings up in severity, is often demanding, scolds Vitya. But all this is because she worries and worries about his fate.

Grandma is in charge of the house, she always commands everything, so her remarks usually sound like orders. However, Katerina Petrovna can also be delicate, which is manifested in her conversation with the buyer of strawberries.

Sanka

The Levontiev children are also the main characters in the story. Astafiev ("Horse with a Pink Mane") singles out the elder among them - Sanka. This is a reckless, greedy, angry and unprincipled boy. It is Sanka who forces Vitya to first eat the berry, then lie to his grandmother, and, to top it off, steal rolls from the house. He lives by the principle "if everything is bad for me, then everyone should be the same." He does not have the respect for elders that Viti has.

Uncle Levontius

Little is said about Uncle Levontius, he is described only at the beginning of the work. a man, a former sailor, who retained a love for freedom and the sea. He is very kind to Vitya, pity him - "he is an orphan." But Levontius has one negative trait, which prevents him from living well, is drunkenness. There is no prosperity in their family, because there is no master. Levontius leaves everything to chance.

These are the main characters in the story. Astafiev ("Horse with a Pink Mane" - an autobiographical tale) put a lot into the characters and into the story from his childhood. Perhaps that is why all the characters turned out to be so lively and distinctive.