/ / "French lessons"
My independent and, so to speak, almost independent life began in 1948. Then I went to the fifth grade in the regional center, since the school was far from my home. There were three of us in my mother’s family, and I was the eldest. Due to the ongoing consequences of the war, in order to deceive the stomach and get rid of the feeling of hunger, I forced my sister to eat potato eyes, grain, and rye.
We lived poorly, and without a father, too, so my mother decided to send me to the region. In my native village I was considered literate, and therefore they carried all the bonds for me. People believed that I had a lucky eye. Thanks to my luck, I also won.
I was the only one and the first from the village to study in the area. I studied well overall, with straight A's. Despite the fact that I quickly learned new words and mastered grammar, due to the difficulty of pronunciation, French was not easy for me at all.
Our teacher, Lidia Mikhailovna, closed her eyes from my pronunciation. She tried hard to teach me how to pronounce sounds, but I couldn't do it. Coming from classes, I was always distracted: doing business, playing with the guys. If I was not busy with anything, homesickness, more than any illness, would overcome me. Because of this melancholy I lost weight.
They sent me food once a week. Mostly it was bread and potatoes. Very rarely, my mother would put me a small jar of cottage cheese. My mother also put a nickel in the envelope with the letter for milk. It was necessary for me because I suffered from anemia. But my products disappeared somewhere - someone took them.
In the fall, Fedka led me behind the gardens to the guys who, hiding, were playing “chicka”. The game turned out to be completely new for me, for money. Since I didn’t have any kopecks, I only watched the boys from the sidelines. The rules of the game seemed simple to me: you had to throw a stone into a stack of coins. If it turns over like an eagle, the money is yours.
Once, with the money my mother sent for milk, I went to play. I lost ninety kopecks in my first game. I trained every evening, and the results were not long in coming. I used the ruble I won to buy goat milk.
My winnings began to anger the guys, and especially Vadik. And once again I won, but Vadik deliberately made the coins “not for storage.” I tried to dispute this, but the guys immediately kicked me. Squelching and bleeding from my nose, I trudged home.
I went to class with a swollen nose and bruises. I answered Lidia Mikhailovna’s questions in a short phrase: "I fell". But Tishkin shouted out that Vadik from the seventh grade did all this because we played with him for money. My greatest fear was that the class teacher would take me to the school principal. Vasily Andreevich usually put the offender on the line and asked in front of everyone what prompted him to engage in this “dirty,” obscene and shameful business. But, to my happiness, Lidia Mikhailovna took me to class. I told her that I was winning a ruble, with which I only bought milk. I promised the teacher not to gamble with coins anymore, but my mother’s situation in the village was very bad, all my supplies were gone. In the desire to find new company for the game, I walked all the streets, but, alas, the season is over. Then I gained strength and went down to the guys again.
The bird therefore attacked me, but Vadik stopped him. I tried to win a little, but what happened happened - I started winning rubles. Then the boys beat me again. This time there were no bruises as such, only a swollen lip.
Lidia Mikhailovna decided to teach me French individually. What a torment this became for me! But the worst thing was that due to lack of time at school, I had to go to her house. She went to home clothes, included records from which came male voice, speaking French. It was impossible to escape from this language. Everything that was happening made me feel awkward and even ashamed.
Lydia Mikhailovna looked about twenty-five years old, and, as it seemed to me, she had already been married. In her gaze one could feel kindness, gentleness, and some cunning.
And I was also terribly afraid when this young woman after class invited me to have dinner with her at the table. Then I jumped up and quickly ran away. It seemed that not even a crust of bread would fit down my throat. Over time, she stopped inviting me to the table, which I was very happy about.
One day the driver, Uncle Vanya, brought me a box. I couldn't wait to get home and eagerly opened it. Imagine my amazement when I saw pasta there! I started gnawing on them, wondering where to put the parcel. But then I came to my senses... What pasta could be from my poor mother? Then I raked through the entire parcel and saw hematogen at the bottom of the box. My doubts were confirmed. It was Lydia Mikhailovna.
One day the teacher asked me again if I was playing for money, and then asked me to tell me the rules of the game. Then she showed me the game of her childhood - “wall” - and invited me to play. I was very surprised. So we started playing with her for money. Lidia Mikhailovna gave in to me, and I noticed it.
One day, while playing and arguing loudly, we heard the voice of Vasily Andreevich. He stood in amazement at the door and was amazed by what he saw: a French teacher playing for money with a ragged student!
Three days later, Lydia Mikhailovna returned to Kuban. I didn't see her again.
In the middle of winter, I received a package: it contained pasta and three scarlet apples. Although I had not seen them before, I realized that it was them.
Title of the work: French lessons
Valentin Rasputin
Year of writing: 1973
Genre: story
Main characters: eleven year old boy- future author of the story, Lidia Mikhailovna- French teacher.
After reading short description story "French Lessons" for reader's diary, you will get acquainted with a real event that left a deep mark on the writer’s life.
Plot
In 1948, the boy went to the 5th grade of the district school to continue his education. He was the eldest child in a large family, his father did not return from the front, and his mother worked hard, trying to feed three children. But the whole village had high hopes for him, since he was an excellent student, and then his mother decided to send him to study in the regional center. The boy was tormented by loneliness and a terrible hunger that he could never satisfy. Having learned about his plight, the French teacher (in this subject - the only one of all - he was lagging behind) decided to help the talented student. But he did not accept help in any form. Then the teacher decided to play “the wall” with him for money, so that the child could buy milk for himself with the money he won. When the school director found out about this “pedagogical technique,” he fired the young teacher, but the boy was able to finish his studies.Conclusion (my opinion)
Valentin Rasputin writes in the preface that this real event, happened in his life, and he subsequently, having already become a writer, met with his teacher, who taught him a real “lesson of kindness,” which influenced his worldview and development as a real person and writer.French lessons by Rasputin, what we study in brief retelling for a reader's diary, the writer wrote in 1973. It was created in the style village prose and may well be considered an autobiographical story, because episodes from the life of the writer himself are revealed here. Let's get acquainted with a brief retelling of French lessons chapter by chapter in order to be able to answer the questions posed by the teacher during the lesson.
French lessons: a summary
At the very beginning, we meet the main character of the story, a fifth-grader boy. He studied the first four grades in the village, but then he had to go to the regional center fifty kilometers from home. From the story French Lessons, we learn that the mother first went to the city to negotiate housing. And in August, the boy came to the city in a car with Uncle Vanya and settled with his aunt. He was eleven then, and it was at this age that his independent adult life began.
The year was 1948. These were hungry times. There was a catastrophic shortage of money, and the hero of the story found it difficult to believe that the mother still let her son go to the city. The family lived poorly, and even without a father. The narrator finished elementary school well; in the village they called him literate. The whole village came to him with bonds when the winning tables came, believing that he had a lucky eye. Indeed, many people in the village won, albeit small cash prizes, but people were happy about that. Everyone said that the guy was growing up smart and he needed to continue to study.
So the mother took her son to a city school, where in general the boy studied well, only his French was lame. Or rather, the pronunciation was lame. No matter how much the teacher showed how to pronounce words and sounds, it was all in vain.
Further, in a brief retelling of the story French Lessons, we learn how hard it was for the boy. Not only was he mortally homesick, but there was also nothing to eat. The mother tried as best she could to feed her son in the city, sending him bread and potatoes, but this did not make it any easier. As it turned out, the housewife’s children stole the food, but the boy did not say anything to his mother, since this would not make it any easier for anyone. There was also hunger in the village, but it was easier to live there by finding some fruits or vegetables. In the city, everything had to be bought. So our hero starved until Uncle Vanya arrived and brought food. There was no point in saving, because the food would be stolen anyway. And having eaten to his fill on the day of Uncle Vanya’s arrival, the rest of the days the boy went hungry again.
One day Fedka started talking about a game for money called Chika. Our hero had no money, so the guys just went to look. The savvy boy quickly figured out the essence of the game and realized that the main one here was a certain Vadik, who was also constantly being cunning. Everyone knew this, but did not say anything.
So our hero decided to try his hand at the game. He decided to use the money that his mother sent him from time to time to buy milk for the game. Due to his lack of experience, he was unlucky at first, but when everyone left, he practiced throwing the puck and the day came when his luck turned and the boy began to win. He was never keen on the game itself, and as soon as he managed to win a ruble, the boy took the money and ran for milk. Now the child was even if he was not full, but the very thought that he could drink milk every day was calming. One day Vadka noticed that the newcomer, as soon as he won money, immediately tried to run away. No one played like that, and this was not forgiven here. Once again, when the narrator managed to take the cash register, Vadka fraudulently tried to prove that he was cheating. A fight broke out. Everyone beat the boy, and then they told him to leave and never come back. And if he tells anyone about this place, he will not live.
The next morning I had to go to school with a broken face, and it was the French lesson that was the first on the schedule and Lydia Mikhailovna was the first to see his painted face. While talking with the student, she heard that he was injured from a fall. However, classmate Tishkin, who also went to play, told the teacher about Vadka and that it was he who beat his classmate. He also talked about playing for money. The teacher asked our hero to stay after class, and called Tishkin to the blackboard.
The boy was afraid of meeting with the director, who would definitely kick him out of school for gambling for money. But Lydia Mikhailovna did not say anything to anyone, but only began asking about the game. The teacher found out that he was playing to win a ruble, for which he bought milk. Looking at the boy, she saw how poorly he was dressed. But she asked him not to tempt fate anymore.
Autumn turned out to be a lean harvest and the mother had nothing to send to her son, and the potatoes that were sent to last time turned out to be eaten. Hunger again forces the boy to go play. At first they didn’t want to let him in, but then Vadka allowed him to play. He now played carefully so as to win only a few kopecks for bread, but on the fourth day he won a ruble and was beaten again.
At first, additional classes were held at school, but then, under the pretext of lack of time, Lidia Mikhailovna began to invite the student to her home. These additional lessons were torture for our hero. He didn’t understand why only the teacher taught him, because the others’ pronunciation was no better. But individual sessions he continues to visit. At the end of class, the teacher invited him to the table, but the boy ran away, saying that he was full. After a while, the woman stopped trying to invite the child to dinner.
One day the boy is informed that a package is waiting for him downstairs. He thought that Uncle Vanya had sent it. Seeing the parcel, the boy thought it strange that it was not in a bag, but in a box. The parcel contained pasta, and the boy understands that his mother could not have sent it, because there has never been anything like this in the village. And he understands that the package is definitely not from his mother. Together with the box, the narrator goes to Lydia Mikhailovna, who pretended that she did not understand what she was talking about. The teacher was surprised that such products did not exist in the village, and in the end admitted that she had sent the parcel. No matter how much Lydia Mikhailovna tried to persuade him, the boy did not take the parcel. But nevertheless, their French lessons continued and there were good results from additional classes.
One day the boy came to class again and the teacher asked if he was playing. He said no, and then she talked about a game from her childhood. It was not a chica, but a wall or a freezer, and then she suggested we try to play. The boy was taken aback and did not agree, but the teacher was able to bring the necessary arguments and persuade him. And so their game began. At first it was just pretend, but then the teacher suggested playing for money. At first he saw that the teacher was playing along with him so that he would constantly win. To which the child began to be indignant. And so things started to happen. After the French lesson they began to play constantly. The boy got money and started drinking milk.
It was the year forty-eight, then the main character of the story was barely eleven years old. The boy successfully completed four grades of school, but received further education I didn’t have the opportunity: to continue my studies I had to go to the city.
Those were difficult post-war years, the child’s family was left without a father, his mother was barely making ends meet in an attempt to feed three children. Everyone was hungry. However, despite everything, he was still able to adequately learn to read and write and was known as a literate person in the village.
The child often read to the elderly, helped write letters, and, more importantly, knew a little about bonds, which is why he often helped the villagers win money, even if it was small. They sometimes fed the child in gratitude.
Realizing that her son had great potential for learning, and listening to the punishments of other people every day, in the end the mother of the main character decided to send him to study further. Yes, there was nothing to live on, but it couldn’t have been worse, and literacy was expensive nowadays. The woman reasoned that the risk was worth it.
Somehow she got the child ready for school, agreed with a friend from the area to place her son with her, and sent the child to the city. So it began independent life the main character, and for him it was very difficult. He often had absolutely nothing to eat: the grains that his mother somehow sent were barely enough, not to mention the fact that the mistress of the house often secretly took some of the food to her children.
The boy was lonely and sad in a strange city, but he did not abandon his studies and studied just as well as before in the village. His only problem in his studies was the French language. The child understood grammar perfectly and calmly learned words, but his pronunciation was very poor. Because of this, his French teacher, Lidia Mikhailovna, remained dissatisfied with him and never gave him grades above a four, but otherwise he was an excellent student.
Days passed by days, and somewhere at the end of September the boy’s mother came to see him. Visit. What she saw horrified her: her son had lost a lot of weight and looked extremely exhausted. But deciding that he didn’t want to upset his mother, main character He behaved with restraint, did not cry in front of her and did not complain about life. However, when the woman was about to leave, he could not stand it and, sobbing, rushed after the car. His mother could not stand it and, stopping the car, suggested that he return home. Frightened that everything they had done would go to waste, he ran away. Then his life went according to plan.
One day, back at the end of September, one of his classmates approached the main character and asked if he was afraid to play Chika. The main character said that he did not know about this game at all, to which he received an invitation to participate. He had neither money nor any skills, so at first the children decided to just watch the game. Already gathered at the agreed place small company children, led by a high school student named Vadik and his right hand- Bird.
The game was in full swing. Watching her, the main character was able to understand the rules of the game and note that Vadik did not play entirely honestly and most of the time it was because of this that he won money, although his playing skills were excellent. Gradually, the idea that he could calmly play this game grew stronger in the boy’s head.
From time to time, along with parcels from my mother, an envelope with several coins would arrive, for which you could buy five small jars of milk. They needed the child because of anemia. When this package once again fell into the boy’s hands, he decided not to buy milk this time, but to exchange the money for small change and try to play Chika. So he did. At first he was unlucky.
However, the more he played, the better his game became. He came up with a strategy, practiced his skills day by day, and finally the day came when he began to win. The boy played carefully and accurately, leaving as soon as he received a ruble, despite all the persuasion to stay. His life began to improve. Now at least he had food.
But, as the child later realized, such success could not be made so obvious. At first, Vadik and Ptah, suspecting something was wrong, began to interfere with the main character in every possible way, but seeing that this did not help, they decided to act radically. Yes, during another game they resorted to outright cheating, after which they beat the main character and kicked him out of the company in disgrace. Walking home beaten and empty-handed, the boy felt like the most unfortunate person in the world.
In the morning, in the reflection of the mirror, the child was greeted by a beaten face. It was not possible to hide the marks from the beating, and the boy fearfully decided to go to school like that, because he did not dare to skip without a good reason. At school, Lidia Mikhailovna, obviously, noticed the boy’s condition and inquired about the reason for so many injuries. The main character lied that he fell down the stairs, but one of his classmates blurted out the whole truth. There was silence for a minute. After that, to the surprise of the main character, the sneak was punished, but they didn’t touch him at all, but they asked him to come in after school.
All day the boy sat on pins and needles, afraid that he (like all the troublemakers in this school) would be placed in the center of a crowd of students and publicly scolded. However, this did not happen. There was no scandal either. Lidia Mikhailovna simply sat him down in front of her and began to question him in a quiet voice. I had to tell everything: about the hunger, and about gambling. The woman treated his troubles with understanding and promised not to tell him anything in response to his promise not to play such games again. That's what they decided on.
He actually lasted a long time. But I had to break my word. There were problems with the harvest in the village, and the child did not receive any more parcels. But the hunger did not go away. Once again, having collected all the small change, the boy began to wander around the neighborhood in the hope of running into any other gaming company, but he only came across an acquaintance. Being in a state of complete despair, he, to his own surprise, decided to approach.
He was not kicked out and beaten only because Vadik had long been bored of playing with the inept punks. The main character was even allowed to play. No matter how he tried to play as minimally as possible, on the fourth day the story of the beating repeated itself. The happiness did not last long, alas. The path to the game was completely closed.
The next morning, the teacher again noted his beaten face. Without commenting on this in any way, she called him to the blackboard and again hearing the expectedly terrible pronunciation, said that it couldn’t continue like this and called him for additional classes.
Thus began additional classes with Lydia Mikhailovna, which took place in her house. The boy felt extremely awkward about this. The classes were difficult, his pronunciation was still poor, but the teacher continued to teach him. Towards the end of the day, she invariably invited him to join her for dinner, but the boy did not agree. He could not afford to beg, he constantly told her that he was full.
The woman knew that this was not so, and every time after a refusal, a shadow of resentment flashed across her face. Soon after another refusal, the woman stopped offering to share the meal with her. Their relationship improved. The child stopped seeing the strict teacher in front of him, but began to see a kind young girl. The lessons also began to bear fruit, but the feeling of awkwardness did not go away. He never accepted the woman’s help, despite all the persuasion, but he became inflamed with an interest in the French language.
One day, while in his room, the boy learned about a package that had arrived for him. Delighted that his mother had finally found food for him, he rushed downstairs, but instead of the expected bag, he found a small box below. The child went with it to a quiet place and, opening it, gasped. It contained potatoes, bread and pasta, which he had not seen for a very long time.
For his family, this has always been an unaffordable luxury. But, maddened by hunger, he hastily began to eat this wealth. And, only after satisfying his first hunger, he suddenly realized that this parcel could not be from his mother. There was nowhere to get pasta in the village. After thinking a little, he came to the conclusion that the package was from his teacher. He did not touch the contents of the box anymore and returned it to the woman by morning. She again tried to persuade him to accept the gift, but the child, afraid of being persuaded, simply jumped out of the room.
Classes with Lidia Mikhailovna continued, the result was obvious, but there was still something to work on. They continued. One day, the woman asked the boy what game he was playing with other children. At first he blushed and didn’t want to tell the teacher this, but then he did. In response, she was surprised, because, according to her, in her time they played a completely different game. She offered to teach him this game, which put the student into even greater shock and embarrassment.
Play something with the teacher! At this, the teacher laughed and told him her secret that she still felt like the mischievous girl she was just a short time ago. That teachers are people too and are not alien to them funny Games. The persuasion worked and they devoted some time to the game every day. At first, the main character didn’t do much, but soon he got the hang of it and even started winning.
Once, after another victory, Lidia Mikhailovna suggested that he try to play for money, explaining that without bets the game lost its flavor, and they were only going to play for small amounts. Again a wall of misunderstanding arose, but soon the teacher got her way, and they began to play with small stakes.
A couple of times the main character caught Lydia Mikhailovna trying to give in, which he was very offended by, but soon these attempts stopped and things went smoothly. Now the child had money again, and free time he spent playing games with Lydia Mikhailovna. This was probably how his happiness felt.
If only the main character knew where these games could lead them... But what has been done cannot be undone. Everything was going well until one day the director caught them talking about the game. Shocked, he tried to find out the truth, to which the teacher calmly confessed everything to him. The next day she was fired.
She and the main character met right before she left. At that last meeting, the teacher told the boy that he had nothing to worry about, the woman herself was to blame for everything and nothing bad would happen to her. She'll just go home. The conversation was short, but the teacher and the child parted on a very warm note.
A few months later, the main character received a package from an unknown sender. He found pasta in it. And the most precious thing is a few apples that I have never seen before in my life.
Summary of French lessons
The story begins with the main character, an eleven-year-old boy from the Siberian outback, entering the fifth grade. It was in 1948, when there was famine in the yard post-war years. The boy was the eldest in a family of three children; they did not have a father. The mother had difficulty finding even a few crumbs of food to feed the children, and he helped her. Sometimes grains of oats and the eyes of sprouted potatoes were the only thing they “planted” in their stomachs. IN primary school the boy studied well, everyone said that he was “brainy.”
Then his mother decided to place him in the regional center with her friend. Still, it couldn’t have been worse and hungrier than at home. So he moved to the city, where he also studied well. The only difficult subject was French. In all other respects he got well-deserved A's. And in French, he could remember the rules, structures, words, but he couldn’t pronounce it. No matter how hard Lidia Mikhailovna tried to teach him pronunciation, it was all in vain. Everything he said out loud in French resembled “village tongue twisters,” and the young teacher only winced at this.
On her next visit, the mother noticed that the boy had lost a lot of weight. She thought it was from worries and boredom at home, she even wanted to take him home. But the thought that I would have to leave my studies stopped me. In fact, such malnutrition was due to the fact that some of the food sent by his mother disappeared somewhere, and the boy could not understand where. He suspected his neighbor Aunt Nadya, who needed to feed three children, but didn’t tell anyone. Unlike the village, here it was impossible to even catch normal fish or dig up edible roots, so he remained hungry for days. Often his dinner was only a mug of boiling water.
Soon he met older boys. Fedka brought him into this circle. Vadik, a healthy seventh grader, was in charge there. The guys often got together to play “chika” for money. The rules were simple. The coins were stacked, heads up. In order to win, you had to hit the stack so that as many coins as possible turned heads up. This was a win. The boy’s classmate, the fussy Tishkin, also went there. We learned to play quickly, but the winnings were always meager. Vadik won the most because he cheated. When the boy tried to accuse him of this, he beat him.
At school, this was noticed by Lidia Mikhailovna, who was not only a French teacher, but also their class teacher. She began to wonder what happened to him. The boy wanted to lie, but Tishkin gave it all away. The teacher asked him to stay after class. He was afraid that she would take him to the director, but she just wanted to talk. The director, Vasily Andreevich, usually in such cases liked to publicly torture the offenders on the line. He could even be expelled from school. But Lydia Mikhailovna acted differently. She asked about what had happened and asked why he needed the money. When she found out that he was buying milk with them, she was very surprised. In the end, he promised not to gamble for money anymore, but he lied.
Soon he needed money again, and he again joined Vadik’s company. When he once again came to school with bruises, Lidia Mikhailovna said that she would leave him after school for additional classes. For the boy it was like torture. He had to go to the teacher’s house, where he was completely lost. She often asked about his family, wanted to feed him dinner, but he ran away. One day the boy received a package with pasta, sugar and hematogen. He immediately realized that this was not from his mother, since they did not have pasta in the village. He returned the box to the teacher and refused to take the food.
The French lessons didn't end there. Lidia Mikhailovna came up with the idea new game: she wanted to play with him for money, only in the game of her childhood “wall”. You had to throw coins against the wall, and then try to reach with your fingers from your coin to someone else’s. If you get it, then the win is yours. They played quietly so that the director behind the wall would not hear, since he lived in the next apartment. One day he finally caught them. The teacher did not deny that she was playing for money with the student. Then he sent her back to Kuban. Just in time for winter, another parcel arrived with pasta and apples. What struck him most were the apples. After all, he had only seen them in pictures before.
