The ship's thicket is on the rise. Review of Prishvin’s fairy tale “Ship Thicket”

Current page: 28 (book has 29 pages in total)

“I’ll have enough to think about our conversation for the rest of my life, Mikhail Ivanovich.” But I just dare to ask you what you said about your path back then: is this a parable, or did foresters in your old days also hunt on paths?

“A parable,” answered Mikhail Ivanovich, standing up. - I was a village boy, well, and I became friends with the master’s guys: they were good guys, populists, and they also talked about the truth, looked for ways to live in truth, and they themselves lived in the estate - and also argued about what the truth was . I really liked them, but their truth somehow didn’t agree with mine. I just wanted all our village men to be able to read books as well as they themselves, to argue about the truth at their leisure. So I took this simplest path for a person and stuck to this path all my life: I spent half my life in prison, half my life in business. And when they reported to me that you had arrived in Moscow to defend your path, I remembered this path of yours,

So it was with Manuila that his time came in the camp hut on a bench under a thick canopy of black smoke. Everything came to mind and immediately went into action: we must immediately go to save the Ship Thicket, find little people along the way and deliver them to their father.

Part Eleven
Ship thicket

Chapter thirty-six

Are there anywhere else in the world such spring spills as ours? And the main thing in such huge changes is that every living creature, even some mole, even a mouse, suddenly comes close to its fate. It seemed to everyone before that they were walking through life with a song, and suddenly it was all over, the song was sung. Now grab your wits and save your life!

This is how it happened that night, when rivers suddenly rushed out of the forests and the entire Prisukha lowland became seas. Then a tugboat with captains who knew Manuila well from previous rafting trips was racing from Sokol to Kotlas at full speed.

What kind of conversation could there be about some of our little private affairs, when the rivers rise and bulge the forest in the deep crevices, when even all the employees in the same Upper Toima, it happened, and the prosecutor himself, with hooks in his hands, rush to the aid of the barge haulers.

Having understood general position, Manuylo quickly pulled the skiffs of his fellow hunters into his unflooded hut, and the bosses, without any conversation, took Manuyla to Verkhnyaya Toima to save the zapon from the pressure of the deep crease.

And the children were left in the wide flood, like orphans, at the mercy of the people. When they, on their raft with a stream of round timber, fell into a zaponi breach on the Dvina, at night they were picked up by the steamer "Bystrov" and transferred to the timber exchange office on Toima Nizhnyaya, and not on Verkhnyaya, where Manuylo was. It was then that it was revealed that a month ago their father, Vasily Veselkin, a sergeant with a bandaged arm, with special powers regarding the selection of wood for aircraft plywood, headed into the vast forests near Mezen, into the protected Ship Thicket.

And it came down further that at the very time when Manuylo was walking along the river to his path beyond Pinega, Mitrasha and Nastya were riding there to Pinega, on the same ice horse. They were well supplied with food and given instructions exact signs, how they can find a protected forest. In the upper reaches of the Pinega, they handed over their “little ice” to where it should be and went forward, to Komi, where along the common path, where they hunted with their lutik, leaving riddles in the sensitive land with their tracks.

At first, it seemed to them just to follow a common path: forest and forest: they grew up in the forest. But suddenly it turned out that suzem is not at all what we call a forest.

Take every tree, every bird - and it turns out: in Suzema everything lives in its own way, everything grows and sings not like somewhere else in childhood we heard and, as if in childhood, we understood once and for all.

In our nature, the cuckoo is a sad bird, and people especially feel this when a cuckoo flies to an uncovered forest.

It seems that we are missing something most precious, which is why, perhaps, cuckoos exist in the world.

We have a “peek-a-boo!” sounds unrequited, and therefore you delve into this bird’s sadness and, when the cuckoo’s song ends, you think: “The cuckoo has flown away to where all the cuckoos live.”

And now here it is, the very country where all the cuckoos live.

Each cuckoo lures you somewhere and immediately deceives you: you walk and walk, but there is nothing there - all the same scary, prickly trees, and your foot is buried in long moss.

You walk and walk, and then the window lights up, and you think: now I’ll rest in the clearing. And it turns out that a gap appeared in the sky from the hillock. You can’t even look from the hillock at the sea of forests, dark forests, seeing nothing, so you go down to the lowland, and there again another cuckoo lures, promises and deceives and deceives.

That’s why passers-by most likely marveled at the mysterious children’s footprints in the long-mesh: everyone, probably, was grabbed by the heart by the thought that just like that, their own child would also end up in the suzem and would walk around in it in search of a way out.

Perhaps this was the way a person’s thoughts turned during wartime, that other children had nowhere to go if their father was killed and their mother died of grief.

But, of course, it could not have occurred to anyone, looking at the footprints, where in the sand by the stream, and where in the moss dents, that these were the traces of children actually walking in Suzem to their own father.

Once, one of the pedestrians wanted to get drunk on the side of the common path in the “Unclosed Well” and shouted from there:

- Come, come here!

Passers-by turned to the well and were also surprised: the “unclosed well” was now closed.

And below, on the ground washed out by water, there were prints of small feet.

- Good kids! - All passers-by agreed among themselves.

And there was another time, too, the path went forward, and the children’s legs were twisted. No one marveled at this: you never know why, out of need, a person needs to be turned off the common path. But when later the same tracks came out onto the path together again, someone wanted to understand why the children had to turn off the common path.

And this is what the ranger understood after analyzing life in the forest.

Each common path in Suzema has its own special life. Of course, if it’s thick all around and you can only see the path under your feet, then you won’t notice anything. But it happens that long ago the water ran away for centuries, the forest seemed to be torn apart, the swampy lowland dried up, and a human path remained on it for a distant visible space.

What a beautiful, dry, white path this is, how many wonderful bends it has. And here’s what’s most amazing: thousands of people, perhaps over thousands of years, have walked among them, perhaps you and I have walked among them more than once, my dear friend, but it’s not me and you alone who are the creators of this path. One walked, the other cut off this trail from the toe or heel. It's surprising that all past person did not lead his common path, like a rail, straight. But the common path, windingly beautiful and flexible, has retained a special character, and this is not my character and not yours, my dear friend, but some new person created by us all.

We all who have walked through a spruce forest know that the roots of a fir tree do not sink into the ground, but lie straight flat, as if on a platter. Horned fir trees defend themselves from windfall only by the fact that one protects the other. But no matter how you protect it, the wind knows its way and knocks down countless trees. Trees often fall on the path. It’s difficult to climb over the tree, the branches are in the way, you don’t want to go around: the tree is long. Most often, passers-by cut down the very thing in the tree that prevents everyone from walking straight along the path. But there was a case when the tree was too big and no one wanted to tinker with it. The path turned and went around a tree. This is how it remained for a hundred years: people got used to making the necessary detour.

Now, most likely, it happened like this: one of the children walked ahead and made this detour, and the other saw it right in front of him on the other side and asked himself: “Why do people make a detour?” Looking ahead, he saw a footprint on the ground crossing the path, like the shadow of a huge tree, although there were no such giants anywhere around. When he approached this shadow, he saw that it was not a shadow, but dust from a rotten tree. But people walk out of habit: for a hundred years they walked in the shadows and mistook the dust for an obstacle. The guys have now crossed the dust and in their own footsteps have returned everyone to the straight path.

“The guys are not simple,” said passers-by, “these are smart guys coming.”

The mystery about children walking somewhere far away in Suzema also grew because everyone who walked forward and backward saw the children’s footprints, but none of those coming either from that side, from Komi, or from here, from Pinega, I didn’t see or meet the children themselves.

And it was all because Mitrasha and Nastya listened to the advice good people: they avoided all encounters, and as soon as they heard steps or voices, they left the path and, invisible, became silent.

So they all walked and walked slowly, spending the night, when necessary, in a forest hut, or even at the nudiya, as they say here: “On the sentukhe.”

Once they came to some river, and were very happy about it, and decided to spend the night here, at the Nudya.

On this side of the river, on the bank, high up there was some kind of old huge forest, overripe, with tobacco branches here, half-breed there, and in cracks. A small building, almost collapsed and with large, alien windows, showed that logging had once begun here and even this office had been set up. But the forest turned out to be vicious, and the felling was abandoned. So it remained intact, this virgin forest, due to the fact that it was spoiled by the cracks of frost and pecked by birds in search of worms.

On the same side of the river there was an infinitely bright glade with small pine trees in the swamp, and from there the first snorts and mutterings of the evening grouse could be heard.

Mitrasha told Nastya:

“Come on, Nastya, let’s not start a nuisance: we are very tired today, we don’t want to mess around with anything.” Look, there are feathers everywhere: black grouse will fly here in the morning, there is most likely a current here. Let's chop some spruce branches and make ourselves a hut. Maybe in the morning I’ll kill the little blackie and we’ll cook lunch for ourselves.

“We’ll just chop some spruce branches,” Nastya answered, “for bedding, and we don’t need a hut: we’ll spend the night in the house.”

That's what we decided.

In addition, there was a lot of last year’s hay in the house, and you can sleep in hay even in the cold.

Sunset fell just opposite the window, and the red sun was setting in the sky, and below the river took over everything in its own way, and the water responded to all the changes in the blooming sky...

Just as Mitrash thought, before sunset, a lekard from the opposite direction flew in, sat on a branch opposite the hut and, having made his usual greeting to nature in the grouse way, bent his head in a red scarf to the very branch and muttered for a long time.

One could understand that the current was calling all the grouse people from the other side here, but they probably sensed the possibility of frost and did not want to disturb the females sitting on their eggs.

All the grouse people scattered throughout the great surad remained in place. But each Kosach answered the current man from the spot, and from this Suzem began its own beautiful lullaby, special for everyone.

A thousand people over thousands of years listened to this lullaby of nature, and everyone understood what this song was about, but no one said a firm word about it.

But then came a war so terrible, the likes of which had not happened since the beginning of the century, and now, in the war, dying or rejoicing at being alive in the world, many understood the lullaby of nature and in it its eternal and main law.

We all know this great law of all life: everyone wants to live, and life is good, and it is necessary, absolutely necessary to live well, life is worth living and even suffering for it.

This song is not new, but in order to take it into yourself in a new way and think about it, you need to listen to how beautiful birds, crowned with a red light on their heads, meet the sun in the northern forests at dawn.

In this lullaby of the Suradis of the earth, there is for a person a hint of a time when in the silence of plant life only the wind rustled, but there were no living voices yet.

Time passed in the silence of living beings. As the wind died down, it sometimes transferred its ugly noise to the thoughtful murmur of countless springs and streams. And once upon a time, quite imperceptibly and little by little, the springs and streams transmitted their sounds to living beings, and they created a lullaby from this sound.

Anyone who has heard this lullaby song at least once in his life while spending the night outdoors will sleep as if he were sleeping, and heard everything, and was also singing.

So it was with Mitrasha. Having made Nastya a good place to sleep for the night out of hay and spruce branches, he sat down on something by the window. When the currenter arrived, he, of course, did not shoot it: if not today, then tomorrow this currenter will certainly call here many birds from the Suradi.

The sun, the sky, the dawn, the river, blue, red, green - all in their own way took part in the lullaby of the entire horizon of endless surads. And the cuckoo kept track of time, but did not interfere and remained inaudible, like a pendulum in the room.

It was a bright northern night, when the sun does not set, but only hides for a while, just to change into morning clothes.

The sun squinted for a long time, as if not daring to leave even a short time this world without itself. Even when it completely disappeared, a witness of life remained in the sky: a large crimson spot. The river responded to the sky with the same crimson spot.

A small glowing bird at the very top of a tall tree whistled to us that the sun was changing where it saw it and asking everyone to be silent.

- Goodbye!

And all the cuckoos and all the suradya fell silent, and from all the sounds on the water only a crimson spot remained, connecting evening and morning.

No one could have said how much time passed in silence, with only a crimson spot on the river: everyone probably took a little nap.

And suddenly Mitrasha heard from the other side, from all the surads, the great, triumphant cry of the cranes:

- Victory!

The first golden ray burst from the reviving sun.

- Hello! – the current man snorted..

From all the surads, in response to the currenter, the blacklings clucked, flapped their wings, and, appearing every minute, more and more new birds introduced themselves to the currenter and all jumped up and said the same thing in their own way:

- Hello!

The coldest thing in the whole night and day is when the sun rises, and, probably, this happens simply from the cold; but it seems to us that the black grouse, out of special bird awe before the king of nature, bow their heads, decorated with a red flower to the very ground. They don’t jump, they don’t cluck, but they now repeat that same evening lulling song like a respectful greeting to the sun.

The meeting of the sun ends with the signal of the current, calling for battle:

Then hundreds of red lights on their heads, white tail lights and black lyre lights - feathers shimmering iridescently in the light of the rising sun - united in a living, joyful trembling.

“I wish I could wake up Nastya,” thought Mitrash, “we don’t have such currents.”

And, whispering something in her ear, he lifted her and showed her.

Nastya had never seen currents and quietly asked:

- What are they doing?

Mitrasha, grinning at the girl, replied:

- The porridge is being cooked.

And as we sometimes do, after thinking a little, he said to himself: “Nothing special.”

The black grouse were little frightened by Mitrash's shot and began again either to pray to the sun or to cook porridge.

It was difficult to tear yourself away from the spectacle of the battle, but the time had come, and in the sunny warmth by their fire, the brother and sister began to manage: they plucked birds, gutted them, fried them, and cooked porridge from their millet.

Chapter thirty-seven

When you walk for a long time in Suzem, you think about something of your own, and suddenly you want to lose your temper and see what is going on in the world without me. Then the first thing you will marvel at is that it is not you, but the trees that are walking past you.

And how briskly they go!

- Nastya! - said Mitrasha when it was evening, - don’t you think it’s not us who are walking, but the trees themselves are walking past us.

“But of course,” answered Nastya, “it always seems so.” “And it also seems,” said Mitrasha, “these trees, which are closer to us, move quickly, but those further away from us are quieter, and the further from us, they become quieter and quieter.”

- And there’s a star, and I look at it, it’s still in place, and no matter how much we walk, it will still remain in its place.

“It seems,” she walks ahead of us and shows us the way.

After thinking a little, Mitrasha also said:

- How can it be that a star appears now: here, in the north, the sky remains bright all night. This is most likely not a star. Show me where she is!

Nastya had nothing to show: the star was no longer there, the star was lost.

“You made it up,” said Mitrasha.

And at the same time, suddenly a strong gust of wind rustled through the trees, and the forest became dark.

Then everything became clear: the clouds covered the sky all around, it became so dark that a star appeared through some window in the sky. And while they were talking about her, the window closed and the wind began to rustle.

And what a noise it made!

No one in our ordinary forests knows how the wind rustles in the land.

But why did it happen that our little wanderers decided to go out for the night, looking somewhere even further in the dense land?

This misfortune happened because, according to the plan drawn up in Nizhnyaya Toima, the last rossoshina of the Koda River was supposed to go away in the summer.

And so it was. The last Rossoshina arrived, it was carried out in the summer, through this the wanderers were confident that they would soon achieve their goal and hastened to go to the northeast.

Five hundred paces along the common path there is a white pillar, and a cross is inscribed on it in black and white. This means that the Komi region begins from this place, an area of immeasurable forests, and all the rivers from here flow not to the Dvina, but to the Mezen.

And so it happened: there was a white pillar, and springs flowed from under our feet in that direction. The general path from here went to the left, and it was necessary to reach a notch in the tree depicting the banner of the ancient path - the Crow's Heel.

We arrived at Crow's Heel at five rubles and turned onto the path.

Now, according to the plan, it was necessary to follow the path until the voice of the river flowing to Mezen, the Porbysh River, was heard.

It was then that it became evening, and a dispute began about the star: was it there or did it seem so.

It was also said in the plan that as soon as the sound of the river is heard, there is no need to stick to the path anymore - why is it? You need to leave the path, go straight to the river and along the bank to the nests, cross them, and then close to the shore there will be that same pond where the people's favorites live - loach and crucian carp. There is even a stove near this clean pond to scoop up water to drink or cook something for yourself. There is a hut on the mountain, and a passer-by always leaves dry firewood, a piece of wood and matches in it. And this hut is the last one on the way to the Ship Thicket. From this place you need to climb three mountains (three river terraces), and at the top there will be the protected Ship Thicket.

When it began to get dark, Mitrasha and Nastya walked and tried to listen to the silence: would they hear rare sounds.

True, you shouldn’t spend the night on the sentukh when you only have to walk a little. That’s why, in tense anticipation of the river’s conversation, it began to appear as if the trees were coming towards us and a star somewhere in the distance was showing the way.

It would only take a little while to hear the river speaking towards our soul, but the wind intercepted the voice of the water and scattered peaceful sounds in the noise of the forest.

It was then that pitch darkness fell in the forest, the path disappeared from under our feet and rain poured down.

What is this northern forest if there is no human path under your feet? These huge inversions, mossy with time, turn into bears, and each one roars.

Try to shout, call a friend with our wonderful native word: “Ay!”

And the word will immediately return to you, powerless, insignificant and funny.

Not only will it return, it will reveal to you that in the direction you called, there is tundra for two hundred miles, and on it you can only make out some bushes, native beds, and in these beds there are cloudberries, and there is nothing else. And in the other direction it will be even quieter.

Just, just let the human path slip from under your feet, and you’re lost.

And the children missed her...

Chapter thirty-eight

The high bank of the river was high everywhere and rose above the water and forests in three river terraces. But where the Crow's Heel path ended, above the hunting hut, the bank stood out at a special height in front of all the mountains of the river, and the whole area around was always called the Three Mountains by the foresters.

The first step of the terrace, or the first mountain, is called Teplaya. You might think that it was called Teplaya because all the birches grew along it, and from here the foresters took their firewood and warmed themselves. But most likely it was not for this that the mountain was named Teplaya, but because the grove itself on this mountain was warm: here the north wind, hitting the wall, stopped, the trees grew in a warm eel.

The second mountain of the river terrace was called Deaf - all because of the same thing: the wind died down near that wall. A good grove rose here in the wind, but it was incomparable with the marvelous Ship Thicket on the wide open plateau of the Third Mountain. It was then that the old forest guards taught their sons and grandsons an example from the life of nature: in the warm wind, some trees grew, and on the Third Mountain, in the free winds, the Ship Thicket of unheard-of power grew.

“So, children,” the old men said, “don’t chase warm happiness alone: this pursuit of a warm life does not always lead to good.”

Because of the agility of their years, the guys did not listen well to the old men, but they pretended to agree. And, just to give a voice, they said on their own:

– And if we don’t chase after a warm life, then what else can we achieve?

The old people rejoiced at this attention too; they just wanted something to grab onto and lay out before the young people the rules of their life experience.

And they pointed again to the Three Mountains, where frail groves grew in the warm wind, and on a large mountain, in the free winds, the world's first Ship Thicket rose.

“Look,” the old people said, “the Thicket stands so tight, you can’t cut down a banner in it, and a tree here can’t even fall: it leans and stands.” Such a Thicket will withstand any wind and defend itself.

“The tree is not an example for us,” the young people defended themselves, “the tree stands, but we achieve.”

“Well, yes,” the elders answered, “you are achieving it!” the tree also reaches: it grows. And we, people, not only race, but also stand for something.

And, after thinking a little, they also said:

– We are also not against a good life, only we stand for living well and working, and not chasing happiness alone: look, a lonely tree is blowing in the wind behind Teplaya Mountain, and in the Ship Thicket every tree stands for everyone , and all the trees stand for each. Got it?

“We understand,” the young people answered, hiding a smile.

Of course, the young people also gradually grew older, and many later remembered the words of their fathers and grandfathers, but they remembered them less and less.

And so, little by little, everything fell asleep in the land. This is why, perhaps, it seems in every great Suzem at the first glance at the sea of forests: it seems as if once upon a time he himself left here and here somewhere he forgot his most dear and sincere.

And he’s drawn to go there again, to look for what he’s forgotten.

Comes new person to the Ship Thicket - and everything around him is marvelous and it seems: he was here a long time ago and forgot something, but now he has found everything and will live in a new way. He will even remember the old words: “Do not pursue happiness alone, but stand together for the truth.”

He will remember, be delighted, and then, in the warmth of his light, he will forget and doze off.

And the Ship Thicket stands and stands.

And every new person who comes here will certainly, looking at her, remember something beautiful about him and, after a short time, immediately forget everything.

The black grouse sings about this at dawn, the streams are all about this: wonderful in nature!

Manuila had in his memory such paths made by deer, and such special climbs in the trees that he could walk along the suzem much faster than everyone else walks in the suzem to the common path. He would only have bread in a sack on his back, and the wind, the cold, and the beast were not afraid of him.

Now it seemed to him as if he was going along some completely new path and towards something unprecedented, and when he encountered his own challenges and noticed deer paths, he asked himself:

- How could I then, still stupid, not seeing anything ahead, be able to correctly notice my future path?

And, waking up, he smiled at himself, like a little one, and repeated to himself, like a child:

- That's it!

In the sense that he most likely repeated these words, that, as happened on his journey, his grandfather’s signs were combined with something of his own, noticed only now and unprecedented. It was so joyful to find himself a new man in the testaments of his fathers that he always marveled and said to himself, like a child:

- That's it!

Now it was also like this: he was going towards something completely new and unprecedented, but his notes were all old, about something very distant, and as if in the past he had been a completely different person.

Be that as it may, with these notes, ridges and deer paths, in heavy rain and in a storm, he came to the river at the very time when the children lost their star and with it let go of the human path from under their feet.

He crossed the river along familiar nests, went up to a pond where loaches and crucian carp lived, and went up even higher, to a hut surrounded by birch trees.

In the darkness, without even striking a fire, he found splinters and matches in the stove brow, left, as is customary in the north, by the last person who spent the night here, for the unknown who will come after him.

Here there was dry firewood, all prepared for the unknown, and now he, the unknown himself, came and lights the firewood, and that person’s goodness turns into fire for another, and he, naked, hanging out his wet clothes, warms himself up.

Feels good! And it seems that the voice of another is heard from somewhere good man:

“I left you behind a bunch of dry splinters and matches.” I cut down a gazebo for you there, near the pond. Now birch trees have grown near the bench.

Black smoke pours out of the forehead, rises up and stops there, and little by little the hut is filled with dense smoke from above, lower and lower.

When the smoke descends so low that its black sky hangs above the naked man’s head and a little more and he will suffocate in it, the naked man with a steaming body takes off his clothes and, covering himself with them, lies down on the bench opposite the stove forehead.

Black sky now it no longer descends, there is no longer any flame, but the red-hot stone looks at a person with a big red eye, and warmth breathes from it, and the person accepts the warmth of this stone as good.

Then everything on earth seems so simple.

There is no other kindness on earth than what one person did for an unknown friend, and this one, grateful, accepts and tomorrow in the same way will thank some other person unknown to him.

It is difficult for an elderly person to fall asleep right away, and he doesn’t want to. Smoke hangs over you like a black warm blanket, and you just don’t want to close your eyes - you’re so attracted by the dark red spot in the darkness and the great breath of goodness.

Maybe it will seem to another person from a big city that he is there somewhere, in big city, wandered and then, saved by the hand of another by this fire, he found his home, and he would like to return man to this original goodness...

Manuilo did not entertain such thoughts, he looked at the fire, and life in the big city looked at him with the same fire of human good: this fire seemed to him like a huge fire, and on it, as in a large forge, iron from the hand of man turned into good.

And if you showed him what we suffer from in a big city and what sometimes draws us to the primeval fire, he would be very surprised, but, soon remembering how he rejoiced at the dry splinters and matches in the smoking hut, he would say: “There when did it start!”

Sleeping in a hunting hut is almost like sleeping in the open air: you can hear everything, and sleep, of course, goes to sleep, and what you hear is next to you, and it’s clear: it’s a dream, or it’s life.

There were screams, there were moans in the forest, and at one time it was absolutely as if the child was calling his mother, and the bears were roaring in response. And it was so clear that if a person spent the night in Suzem for the first time, he would inevitably think that he should quickly get up, look for the baby in the forest and fight the bears.

But all this, as usual for Manuila, took place next to something else. When the storm began to subside, Manuilo did not miss this in his dream. After midnight and closer to dawn, the forest gave its voice to the river.

This transition from the voice of the forest to the voice of the river for a sleeping person was the same as if he were sleeping on the prickly and moving peaks of a dark forest and suddenly lay down on a light, calmly lazy summer cloud. And you can hear from there how in a quiet forest people call each other with their voices and how the river below talks to someone on the side of a person.

The man’s words were so clear that Manuilo jumped up, got dressed, took the gun, and went out.

The dawn was breaking, the river was answering the dawn, and the boy with a long gun, familiar to Manuila, and behind him a girl with a folding tent, were crossing the black stones.

But there is no return for us, and our home is not near a fire in a protected forest, not behind, but all in front.

PART ELEVEN. SHIP THOTTEK

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

This is how it happened that night, when rivers suddenly rushed out of the forests and the entire Prisukha lowland became a sea. Then a tugboat with captains who knew Manuila well from previous rafting trips was racing from Sokol to Kotlas at full speed.

What kind of conversation could there be here about some of our little private affairs, when rivers rise and bulge the forest in deep crevasses, when even all the employees in the same Upper Toima, sometimes even the prosecutor himself, with hooks in their hands, rush to the aid of the barge haulers.

Realizing the general situation, Manuylo quickly pulled the skiffs of his fellow hunters into his flood-proof hut, and the bosses, without any further discussion, took Manuyla to Upper Toyma to save the zapon from the pressure of the deep crease.

And the children were left in the wide flood, like orphans, at the mercy of the people. When they, on their raft with a stream of round timber, fell into a zaponi breach on the Dvina, at night they were picked up by the steamer "Bystrov" and transferred to the timber exchange office on Toima Nizhnyaya, and not on Verkhnyaya, where Manuylo was. It was then that it was revealed that a month ago their father, Vasily Veselkin, a sergeant with his arm tied, with special powers regarding the selection of wood for aircraft plywood, went to the immense forests near Mezen, to the protected Ship Thicket.

And it came down further that at the very time when Manuylo was walking along the river to his path beyond Pinega, Mitrasha and Nastya were riding there, to Pinega, on the same ice horse. They were well supplied with food and given instructions with precise signs on how to find the protected forest. In the upper reaches of the Pinega, they handed over their “little ice” to where it should be and went forward, to Komi, where along a common path, where on hunting paths, leaving riddles in the sensitive Suzem with their tracks.

At first, it seemed to them just to follow a common path: forest and forest: they grew up in the forest. But suddenly it turned out that suzem is not at all what we call a forest.

In our nature, the cuckoo is a sad bird, and people especially feel this when a cuckoo flies to an uncovered forest.

It seems that we are missing something most precious, which is why, perhaps, cuckoos exist in the world.

And now here it is, the very country where all the cuckoos live.

Each cuckoo lures you somewhere and immediately deceives you: you walk and walk, but there is nothing there - all the same scary, prickly trees, and your foot is buried in long moss.

Perhaps this was the way a person’s thoughts turned during wartime, that other children had nowhere to go if their father was killed and their mother died of grief.

Once, one of the pedestrians wanted to get drunk on the side of the common path in the “Unclosed Well” and shouted from there:

Wait, come here!

Passers-by turned to the well and were also surprised: the “unclosed well” was now closed.

And below, on the ground washed out by water, there were prints of small feet.

Good kids! - all passers-by agreed among themselves.

And there was another time, too, the path went forward, and the children’s legs were twisted. No one marveled at this: you never know why, out of need, a person sometimes needs to turn off the common path. But when later the same tracks came out onto the path together again, someone wanted to understand why the children had to turn off the common path.

And this is what the ranger understood after analyzing life in the forest.

Each common path in Suzema has its own special life. Of course, if it’s thick all around and you can only see the path under your feet, then you won’t notice anything. But it happens that long ago the water ran away for centuries, the forest seemed to be torn apart, the swampy lowland dried up and remained like that, and on it a human path remained open to a distant visible space.

What a beautiful, dry, white path this is, how many wonderful bends it has. And here’s what’s most amazing: thousands of people, perhaps over thousands of years, walked among them, perhaps both you and I walked through them more than once, my dear friend, but it’s not me and you alone who are the creators of this path. One walked, the other cut off this trail from the toe or heel. It is surprising that all the people who passed did not lead their common path, like a rail, straight. But the common path, windingly beautiful and flexible, has retained a special character, and this is not my character and not yours, my dear friend, but some new person created by us all.

Now, most likely, it happened like this: one of the children walked ahead and made this detour, and the other saw it right in front of him on the other side and asked himself: “Why do people make a detour?” Looking ahead, he saw a footprint on the ground crossing the path, like the shadow of a huge tree, although there were no such giants anywhere around. When he approached this shadow, he saw that it was not a shadow, but dust from a rotten tree. But people walk out of habit: for a hundred years they walked in the shadows and mistook the dust for an obstacle. The guys have now crossed the dust and with their footprints have returned everyone to the straight path.

These guys are not simple, said passers-by, these are smart guys coming.

The mystery about children walking somewhere far away in Suzema also grew because everyone who walked both forward and back saw the children’s footprints, but none of those coming either from that side, from Komi, or from here, from Pinega, themselves I haven’t seen or met any children.

And it all was because Mitrasha and Nastya heeded the advice of good people: they avoided all meetings, and, as soon as they heard footsteps or voices, let them leave the path, and, invisible, become silent.

So they all walked and walked slowly, spending the night, when necessary, in a forest hut, or even at the nudiya, as they say here: “on the sentukhe.”

Once they came to some river, and were very happy about it, and decided to spend the night here, at the Nudya.

On the same side of the river there was an infinitely bright glade with small pine trees in the swamp, and from there the first snorts and mutterings of the evening grouse could be heard.

Mitrasha told Nastya:

Come on, Nastya, let’s not start a nuisance: we are very tired today, we don’t want to bother with anything. Look, there are feathers everywhere: black grouse will fly here in the morning, there is most likely a current here. Let's chop some spruce branches and make ourselves a hut. Maybe in the morning I’ll kill the little blackie and we’ll cook lunch for ourselves.

“We’ll just chop the spruce branches,” Nastya answered, “for bedding, and we don’t need a hut: we’ll spend the night in the house.”

That's what we decided. In addition, there was a lot of last year’s hay in the house, and you can sleep in hay even in the cold.

Sunset fell just opposite the window, and the red sun was setting in the sky, and below the river took over everything in its own way, and the water responded to all the changes in the blooming sky.

As Mitrash thought, before sunset, a lekard flew in from the other side, sat down on a branch opposite the hut and, having made his usual greeting to nature in the grouse way, bent his head in a red scarf to the very branch and muttered for a long time.

Thousands of people over thousands of years listened to this lullaby of nature, and everyone understood what this song was about, but no one said a firm word about it.

We all know this great law of all life: everyone wants to live, and life is good, and it is necessary, absolutely necessary to live well, life is worth living and even suffering for it.

This song is not new, but in order to take it into yourself in a new way and think about it, you need to listen to how in the northern forests at dawn beautiful birds, crowned with a red light on their heads, meet the sun at dawn.

In this lullaby of the Suradis of the earth, there is for a person a hint of a time when in the silence of plant life only the wind rustled, but there were no living voices yet.

Anyone who has heard this lullaby song at least once in his life while spending the night outdoors will sleep as if he were sleeping, and heard everything, and was also singing.

The sun, sky, dawn, river, blue, red, green - all in their own way took part in the lullaby of the entire horizon of endless surads. And the cuckoo kept track of time, but did not interfere and remained inaudible, like a pendulum in the room.

It was a bright northern night, when the sun does not set, but only hides for a while, just to change into morning clothes.

The sun squinted for a long time, as if not daring to leave this world without itself even for a short time. Even when it completely disappeared, a witness of life remained in the sky: a large crimson spot. The river responded to the sky with the same crimson spot.

A small glowing bird at the very top of a tall tree whistled to us that the sun was changing where it saw it and asking everyone to be silent.

Farewell!

And all the cuckoos and all the suradya fell silent, and from all the sounds on the water only a crimson spot remained, connecting evening and morning.

No one could have said how much time passed in silence, with only a crimson spot on the river: everyone probably took a little nap.

And suddenly Mitrasha heard from the other side, from all the surads, the great, triumphant cry of the cranes:

The first golden ray burst from the reviving sun.

Hello! - the current worker snorted.

From all the surads, in response to the currenter, the blacklings clucked, flapped their wings, and, appearing every minute, more and more new birds introduced themselves to the currenter and everyone: they jumped up and said the same thing in their own way:

Hello!

The coldest thing in the whole night and day is when the sun rises, and, probably, this happens simply from the cold; but it seems to us that the black grouse, out of special bird awe before the king of nature, bow their heads, decorated with a red flower, to the very ground. They don’t jump, they don’t cluck, but they now repeat that same evening lulling song like a respectful greeting to the sun.

The meeting of the sun ends with the signal of the current, calling for battle:

Then hundreds of red lights on their heads, white tails and black lyres of feathers, iridescent in the light of the rising sun, united in a lively and joyful trembling.

“I wish I could wake up Nastya,” thought Mitrash, “we don’t have such currents.”

And, whispering something in her ear, he lifted her and showed her.

Nastya had never seen currents and quietly asked:

What are they doing?

Mitrasha, grinning at the girl, replied:

The porridge is being cooked.

And, as we sometimes do, after thinking a little, he said to himself: “Nothing special.”

The black grouse were little afraid of the shot and began again either to pray to the sun as if to God or to cook porridge.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Nastya! - said Mitrasha when it was evening, - don’t you think it’s not us who are walking, but the trees themselves are walking past us?

“But of course,” Nastya answered, “it always seems so.”

And as it seems,” said Mitrasha, “these trees, which are closer to us, move quickly, but further away from us they are quieter, and the farther from us they get quieter and quieter.”

And there’s a star, and I look at it, it’s still in place, and no matter how much we walk, it will still remain in its place.

It seems that she is walking ahead of us and showing us the way.

After thinking a little, Mitrasha also said:

How can it be that a star appears now: here, in the north, the sky remains bright all night. This is most likely not a star. Show me where she is!

Nastya had nothing to show: the star was no longer there, the star was lost.

“You made it up,” said Mitrasha.

And at the same time, suddenly a strong gust of wind rustled through the trees, and the forest became dark.

And what a noise it made!

No one in our ordinary forests knows how the wind rustles in the land.

But why did it happen that our little wanderers decided to go out for the night, looking somewhere even further in the dense land?

This misfortune happened because, according to the plan drawn up in Nizhnyaya Toima, the last Rossoshina of the Koda River was supposed to go away in the summer 1.

And so it was. The last Rossoshina arrived, it was carried out in the summer, through this the wanderers were confident that they would soon achieve their goal and hastened to go to the northeast.

We came to the Crow's Heel at five rubles and turned onto the path.

Now, according to the plan, it was necessary to follow the path until the voice of the river flowing to Mezen, the Porbysh River, was heard.

It was then that it became evening, and a dispute began about the star: was it there or did it seem so.

It was also said in the plan that as soon as the sound of the river is heard, there is no need to stick to the path anymore - why is it there? You need to leave the path, go straight to the river and along the bank to the nests, cross them, and then close to the shore there will be that same pond where the people's favorites live - loach and crucian carp. There is even a stove near this clean pond to scoop up water to drink or cook something for yourself. Ten steps from the pond on the mountain there is a hut, and in it a passer-by always leaves dry firewood, a splinter and matches. And this hut is the last one on the way to the Ship Thicket. From this place you need to climb three mountains (three river terraces), and at the top there will be the protected Ship Thicket.

When it began to get dark, Mitrasha and Nastya walked and tried to listen to the silence: would they hear the sounds of the river.

It would only take a little while to hear the river speaking towards our soul, but the wind intercepted the voice of the water and scattered peaceful sounds in the noise of the forest.

It was then that pitch darkness fell in the forest, the path disappeared from under our feet and rain poured down.

What is this northern forest if there is no human path under your feet? These huge inversions, mossy with time, turn into bears, and each one roars.

Try to shout, call a friend with our wonderful native word: “Ay!” And the word will immediately return to you, powerless, insignificant and funny.

Just, just let the human path slip from under your feet, and you’re lost.

And the children missed her.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

The second mountain of the river terrace was called Deaf - all because of the same thing that the wind died down near that wall. A good grove rose here in the wind, but it was incomparable with the marvelous Ship Thicket on the wide open plateau of the Third Mountain. It was then that the old forest guards taught their sons and grandsons an example from the life of nature: in the warm wind, some trees grew, and on the Third Mountain, in the free winds, a Ship Thicket of unheard-of power grew.

So, children, - the old people said, - do not chase warm happiness alone: this pursuit of a warm life does not always lead to good.

The boys, due to the agility of their years, did not listen well to the old men, but they pretended to agree. And just to give a voice, they said from themselves:

And if we don’t chase after a warm life, then what else can we achieve?

The old people rejoiced at this attention too; they just wanted something to grab onto and lay out before the young people the rules of their life experience.

And they pointed again to the Three Mountains, where frail groves grew in the warm wind, and on a large mountain, in the free winds, the world's first Ship Thicket rose.

Look,” the old people said, “the Thicket stands so tight, you can’t cut down a banner in it, and a tree here can’t even fall: it leans and stands. Such a Thicket will withstand any wind and defend itself.

The tree is not an example for us,” the young people defended themselves, “the tree stands, but we achieve.”

Well, yes,” the elders answered, “you are achieving it!” the tree also reaches: it grows. And we, people, not only race, but also stand for something.

And, after thinking a little, they also said:

We are also not against a good life, only we stand for living well and working, and not chasing happiness alone: look, a lonely tree is blowing in the wind behind Teplaya Mountain, and in the Korabelnaya thicket every tree stands for everyone, and all the trees stand for each one. Got it?

“We understand,” the young people answered, hiding a smile.

Of course, the young people also gradually grew older, and many later remembered the words of their fathers and grandfathers, but they remembered them less and less.

And so, little by little, everything fell asleep in the Suzem. This is why, perhaps, it seems in every great Suzem at the first glance at the sea of forests: it seems as if once upon a time he himself left here and here somewhere he forgot his most dear and sincere.

And he’s drawn to go there again, to look for what he’s forgotten.

A new person comes to the Ship Thicket - and everything around him is marvelous and it seems: he was here a long time ago and forgot something, but now he has found everything and will live in a new way. He will even remember the old words:

“Do not pursue happiness alone, but stand together for the truth.”

He will remember, be delighted, and then, in the warmth of his light, he will forget and doze off.

And the Ship Thicket stands and stands.

And every new person who comes here will certainly, looking at her, remember something beautiful about him and, after a short time, immediately forget everything.

The black grouse sings about this at dawn, the streams are all about this: wonderful in nature!

Manuila had in his memory such paths made by deer, and such special climbs in the trees that he could walk along the suzem much faster than everyone else walks along the common path in the suzem. He would only have bread in a sack on his back, and the wind, the cold, and the beast were not afraid of him.

Now it seemed to him as if he was going along some completely new path and towards something unprecedented, and when he encountered his own challenges and noticed deer paths, he asked himself:

How could I, then, still stupid, not seeing anything ahead, correctly notice my future path?

And, waking up, he smiled at himself, like a little one, and repeated to himself, like a child:

That's it!

Now it was also like this: he was going towards something completely new and unprecedented, but his notes were all old, about something very distant, and as if then he was a completely different person.

He crossed the river along familiar nests, went up to a pond where loaches and crucian carp lived, and went up even higher, to a hut surrounded by birch trees.

Feels good! And it seems that the voice of another good person is heard from somewhere:

It was I who left behind you a bunch of dry splinters and matches. I cut down a gazebo for you there, near the pond. Now birch trees have grown near the bench.

Black smoke pours out of the forehead, rises up and stops there, and little by little the hut is filled with dense smoke from above, lower and lower.

The black sky now no longer descends, there is no more flame, but the red-hot stone looks at the person with a large red eye, and warmth breathes from it, and the person accepts the warmth of this stone as good.

Then everything on earth seems so simple.

There is no other kindness on earth than what one person did for an unknown friend, and this one, grateful, accepts and tomorrow in the same way will thank some other person unknown to him.

It is difficult for an elderly person to fall asleep right away, and he doesn’t want to. The smoke hangs above you like a black warm blanket, but you just don’t want to close your eyes - you’re so attracted by the dark red spot in the darkness and the great breath of goodness.

Perhaps it will seem to another person from a big city that he was wandering somewhere, in a big city, and here, saved by the hand of another, he found his home by this fire, and he would want to return the person to this original goodness...

Manuylo did not entertain such thoughts, he looked at the fire, and life in the big city looked at him with the same fire of human good: this fire seemed to him like a huge fire, and on it, as in a large forge, iron from the hand of man turned into good.. .

“That’s when it started!”

Sleeping in a hunting hut is almost like sleeping in the open air: you can hear everything, and sleep, of course, is a dream, and what you hear is next to you, and it’s clear: it’s either a dream or life.

The man’s words were so clear that Manuilo jumped up, got dressed, took the gun, and went out.

The dawn was breaking, the river was answering the dawn, and the boy with a long gun, familiar to Manuila, and behind him a girl with a folding tent, were crossing the black stones.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

The ground under the Ship Thicket was not a flat floor, but rolled in greenish-white ridges similar to moonlight. As you walked, these ridges of reindeer moss were almost invisible to your feet, but to your eyes it seemed as if waves of moonlight were changing one into another in front of you. You look at these ridges, and you, too, are drawn to go where they roll themselves. That’s why everyone unfamiliar with the area inevitably comes along these ridges to the Zvonka Sich along the Third Mountain, which is open to the entire distance.

Someone lived here in time immemorial, and it was probably he who cut down a dozen trees for his hut.

As always happens in Suzema, birches grew in place of the felled pioneer trees and with their birch whispers about human affairs they began to attract new guests, free guards of the Ship Thicket.

It so happened in the Komi region that someone very old, who had lost the strength to work in the family, went to the Zvonkaya Slaughter and lived there. That original hut at Zvonkaya Sich, of course, has decayed since those distant times, but each new watchman renovated it for himself, and it remained and has survived to this day, retaining its usual form of a chicken hunting hut.

Probably not a single old tree remained in this hut, but after the new guard, several new trees arrived to replace the decayed ones, and several new birches grew in the clearing.

The bench was near the hut, and if you sit on it, then right in front of your eyes is a window from the Third Mountain, from where the blue ridges, blue, pass into the blue mist.

The entire clearing between the huge pines looked like the bottom of a forest bucket open to the sky.

A great, powerful, huge light, unbearable for plants grown in the shade, covered the entire Sich and brought light-loving herbs to life.

Only one of the shade-tolerant fir trees stood in the middle of the clearing.

How much of a struggle did this tree endure with itself, so that all its cells, prepared to fight the shadow, could be rebuilt into cells capable of receiving the new great light.

Did anyone help this Christmas tree in any way in its struggle for its correct shape, or did it just awaken its ancient man create your own desire for a moral form, which we call truth?

Who knows?

Whether in the same words as we did, every simple person sitting on a bench near a hut, opposite a Christmas tree of an unusually regular shape, somehow came to the following words: “Don’t chase happiness alone, children, but chase the truth together.” .

The battle was probably named Zvonka because in the spring, at dawn, all the songs of swamp birds rush through the window here and, in an indefinite rumbling, spread like a lullaby throughout all the lunar hills. You walk on dry, crisp white moss, and this most ancient and forgotten song goes with you.

And if you sit on a bench and listen, then the same thing happens to everyone. At first, everyone is sure that in these forests, untouched by human hands, some of our great goodness, great happiness, forgotten by us, alluring, is preserved.

Everyone feels the strength within themselves, as if they just take it, and everything around them will rise to a new, wonderful, unprecedented life. But a little time passes, and everyone forgets his first feeling when meeting the forests and remains with everyone else, like everyone else: he freezes, not remembering something, and so it remains until someone new comes: it flares up when he meets “nature” in the new, like something beautiful, forgotten, and freezes again.

The last guard of the Ship Thicket came to this Sounding Battle, Onesimus, the same one who got to guard the Thicket in our modern time.

Here, to Onesimus, on the most early spring a soldier came with a bandaged hand and called himself Vasily Veselkin from the city of Pereslavl-Zalessky.

He did not hide why he came: in order to make the Ship Thicket useful for people.

And he spoke in detail about the current need for aircraft plywood.

It came out of the story: The thicket definitely needs to be cut down.

Onesimus had a favorite not only the forest Thicket, he spent his time with all his favorite people: they all left.

But his thought remained, calm and heartfelt. Most likely he even liked Veselkin for some reason.

“Make the Thicket useful for people,” he said calmly, “make a club out of each tree and whip it on the head?”

“That’s why we want to cut down the Thicket,” Veselkin answered, “so that we can take the club into our own hands and prevent our enemy.”

“It’s a good thing,” answered Onisim, “but is there really no place to get plywood except from our forest?” So, perhaps, they will take you and me to batons.

“This forest,” Veselkin answered, “has stopped standing, it must, without any benefit to man, perish from a worm or a fire.”

“We guard against fire,” said Onisim, “but there is no worm in this forest.”

All the same, what good is it that such a forest is ready and stands without use?

“But he doesn’t stand like that,” answered Onisim, “he’s like a school for young people.” Nowadays it is the custom among young people to achieve their happiness alone in daring ways. So we point out to them: a lone tree falls even from a light wind, but in the Thicket even which tree needs to fall, there is nowhere to fall. And for centuries it has already been like this for us that we point to the Ship Thicket and teach: “ Lonely tree It also blows in the wind behind Teplaya Gora, and in the Korabelnaya thicket a tree stands for everyone and all the trees stand for each. Don’t chase happiness alone, but stand together for the truth.”

Veselkin did not answer these words.

In the morning, at dawn, he heard birds singing and, remembering his childhood in the forests, went out.

He knew well how wonderfully the black grouse sing at dawn, but he never knew what happened at Zvonkaya Sich. Each head of a beautiful bird, like a red flower, bows before rising sun to the ground.

So Veselkin, listening to the lullaby of the forest desert, began to bow down, and with a little more, perhaps, he would have stood and froze like everyone else. But his gaze fell on one fir tree among the birch forest, all covered with small red cones, and golden pollen was already flying onto them.

Then he remembered his distant Christmas tree, when a great, mighty light fell on it and it bloomed in its own way.

Veselkin suddenly jumped up from his bench and saw Onisim from the threshold, with a stick in his hand and a bag of food on his back, looking at him and, as if completely understanding, smiling.

“Do you think, grandfather,” he said, “it’s easier for me to part with the forest than you?”

The old man smiled even more, as if Veselkin’s words confirmed his guess.

Onisim went up to Veselkin, caressed his shoulder and answered:

It’s a lot easier for you, my friend: you’re still young. But who knows, maybe we will not part with the Ship Thicket yet.

So they went their separate ways: Veselkin - to recruit workers for the village, and Onisim decided that night, like many in such difficult cases, to go to Kalinin and ask him to stand up for the Ship Thicket.

CHAPTER FORTY

Before chopping and sawing ripe Pinery, lumberjacks, at the height of their own height, cut down grooves, as they call them, mustaches on each tree. Aromatic juice flows through these mustaches from the tree and from the mustache ends up in a special glass tied to the tree.

Soon after cutting down the tendrils to drain the thick, fragrant resin, the sections of bark cut on the tree begin to turn red, and it seems as if it is not the resin that is flowing out of the tree, but blood.

This preparation of the forest before cutting it is called death tapping.

This was the case in the Ship Thicket, when Veselkin achieved his goal and brought dozens of boys to the Zvonkaya Slaughter to prepare the Ship Thicket for the log house.

Under the supervision of Veselkin, the boys set up light barracks for themselves right there, on Zvonkaya Sich, next to the watchman’s hut, and then, in their youth, without any hesitation, began to jump to death.

The pine resin does not immediately flow out from under the knife. Manuilo would not have noticed anything from below if one boy in a tree had not caught his eye. It was early in the morning when, having put the children to bed, Manuilo went out to the pond to grab some water, to come to his senses after the storm, what to agree with nature, what to reproach, and also to make sure whether the friendly fish - loach and crucian carp - still lived in the pond.

It’s good after storms and rains to warm up under the black canopy of a smoke hut, but it’s also good, after sleeping, to come out from under the black warmth into the white light.

The morning after the spring storm turned out to be the most peaceful, and if only a person could rejoice! when suddenly, stretching around, Manuilo noticed something unusual, became alarmed and looked closely at the trees of the Ship Thicket on the Third Mountain.

It was then that it turned out that on the Third Mountain some boys were fiddling around with knives shining in the sun in their hands.

Having taken a closer look, and having thought about it, Manuilo’s face darkened and he said out loud to himself:

This is a trick to death.

One could only hope that the kicking had just begun and that it could still be stopped.

Out of nowhere, by this time Onesimus arrived with his belated news about the end of the war. Resting against the treasure chests on the river with the tip of his hard staff, the old man crossed the bridge and took a closer look at Manuila...

How many years have passed! and suddenly, for some reason, I remembered something.

Do you remember Ushkalo? - asked Onesimus.

Onesimus! - Manuylo also found out and also remembered the conversation about a stick that was once found near a pond where loaches and crucian carp lived from time immemorial.

And this is what Manuilo was like, that sixty years had passed for the man, he had seen everything in the world, even Moscow and Kalinin, and how he remembered the ear and how in his simplicity he pointed out the Ship Thicket to his comrade in the infirmary, and now he met the clear eyes of old Onesimus , then he could not look, as if at the sun, he looked down and became confused.

Do you see? - he asked, pointing to the boys with sparkling knives in their hands.

“I know that,” answered Onisim, “they’ve only just begun the trick, I’m in a hurry: the war is over, and this matter must be abandoned.”

No,” answered Manuilo, “you don’t understand all the trouble with your Ship Thicket...

Don't know? - repeated Onesimus. - How come I don’t know what you’re saying?

And he sat down on the same gazebo bench where there were a hundred and more years people sat down and, without asking, four birch trees grew.

Manuilo, of course, immediately sat down next to the old man.

Onesimus told everything about how a soldier came to them with his arm tied and persuaded them to donate the Ship Thicket to the war against the enemies. And that he was about to go to Kalinin, but on the road, in the first village from Suzem, he learned great joy for everyone and immediately returned: if the war was over, then why cut down the Ship Thicket?

After listening to Onesimus, Manuilo told him only one thing:

You don’t understand, grandfather, what our fairy tale is about.

Onesimus smiled and looked straight into Manuila’s eyes and said to him affectionately:

Of course, I may not understand, my friend, but don’t be proud and turn your fairy tale into truth.

It’s true,” answered Manuilo, “grandfather, as it was true, it remains true now.”

And what am I constantly talking about to young people? Is it true! And I’m not the only one, but all our grandfathers and great-grandfathers taught: “Don’t chase happiness alone, kids, chase the truth together.”

That’s exactly what Kalinin told me: you never know if we have enough forests for war to make a club out of wood and whip the enemy with it. And there are forests where it flows great river. The beginning of such a river must be preserved. All over the world, it’s like this: first, all the forests will be destroyed, and then they will be missed, but it’s too late: the forests have been destroyed, and without the forests in the sun, all our truth has dried up.

Did Kalinin tell you this? - asked Onesimus.

And he immediately became younger.

Kalinin said this,” answered Manuilo, “and told me to quickly come here and save the Ship Thicket: there is also a paper from him.” He also said that according to such protected forests we will learn to grow new, unprecedented forests to protect world peace.

“And how do you understand,” asked Onesimus, “there will be no wars on earth now?”

So I also asked Kalinin this way, and he answered me: there will still be enough wars, but our thoughts will not go in the right direction: let there be war, if necessary, and people will draw closer to each other not for war, but for peace.

“This is the true truth,” answered Onesimus. “Let’s go to the mountain now.”

And, leaving the children in the hut to fill up their time, Onisim and Manuila climbed the Third Mountain. They walked through the lunar ridges of reindeer moss to the Sounding Slaughter.

It’s impossible to say that Veselkin was very happy with his friend: he was completely busy with something, and it was clear that it was not easy for him to make this jump to death.

Listening to Manuila and everything that Kalinin said, Veselkin was silent for a long time and, having listened, thought deeply.

And then Mitrash and Nastya came running here and stopped, like wild animals, in a clearing under a Christmas tree of an unusually regular shape.

They recognized their father, and he guessed and asked:

They didn't tell him anything.

And he suddenly understood everything and completely changed.

Of course, people don’t come to their senses right away. After a great shock, we need some time to tie up the broken ends of life and again return to the effort to live like a human being and lead it along the big path.

The black grouse were also singing their morning lullaby. I’ve hardly heard Veselkin’s song just now. He sat down on a bench and thought deeply. A few short moments passed, but it seemed like a long time!

Suddenly he shuddered, woke up, looked around in the clearing, met his eyes with a fir tree of an unusually regular shape, with red cones showered with golden pollen.

Seeing the Christmas tree, Veselkin apparently made an effort.

At that moment the sun came out of the clouds, and a great, powerful, huge light rushed into the clearing.

Well, heroes, hello! - said the father, and the children rushed to him.

During this time, all the boys who worked at the edge of the Ship Thicket gathered at the Zvonka Sich.

Seeing them, Veselkin ordered them to finish the trick to death and put plasters on all the wounds.

And so the Ship Thicket was saved, by good ordinary people she was saved.

“Ship Thicket” - many are familiar with this phrase from school: this is the name of the philosophical fairy tale by Mikhail Prishvin, last story famous Soviet writer. But not everyone knows that the prototype of the “Ship Thicket” was real place, a relict pine forest on the border of the Komi Republic and Arkhangelsk region, which impressed the writer so much that the story, inspired by a visit to this place, became one of the most famous, key works in his work.

Eighty years after Prishvin’s expedition, a group of photographers and journalists set off through the protected thickets of the Komi Republic to test in practice the route developed by the Komi tourism agency and try to understand why the northern forest so struck the writer.

The total length of the route is 385 kilometers. An almost abandoned gravel and concrete road ends 176 kilometers from Usogorsk with a unique monument human civilization, like the scenery of a science fiction film in the post-apocalypse genre. Further - only on foot.

On foot - to the Thicket and back - you have to walk about 40 kilometers. We quickly delve into the untrodden taiga. The sun seems to be playing with us, peeking out from behind the trunks of 20-meter spruce trees, and under our feet there are swamps and thickets of horsetail.

By the standards of city walks, 40 kilometers is not so much, but in the wild Komi wilds the speed of movement is no more than a kilometer per hour, or even less if you have to make your way through swampy areas. There are no walking paths, but there is a map, compass and approximate directions.

The path is blocked by windfalls - spaces with trees fallen by the wind. You feel as if you are following in the footsteps of the heroes of “The Thicket of Ships”: “Everyone who has walked through a spruce forest knows that the roots of a fir tree do not sink into the ground, but lie flat, as if on a platter. Horned fir trees defend themselves from windfall only by the fact that one protects the other. But no matter how you protect it, the wind knows its way and knocks down countless trees. Trees often fall on the path. It's difficult to climb over a tree..."

“An unprecedented sight opened up when we reached the top of the sluda ( note: sluda is a toponym denoting a slope, a mountain): quite rare middle-aged pines stood on a tablecloth of white moss, perhaps slightly greenish<…>And there’s a green stripe on the white: this tree once fell and long later gave life to the white green moss,” the writer tells about a hike through the northern forest in his diaries.

Closer to the goal, at the end of the second day of the journey, white, “reindeer” moss, which is mentioned more than once in Prishvin’s notes, is found more and more often, the spruce forest becomes denser and taller, but this is good news - the swamps are over, all that remains is to just make your way through the thicket with backpacks and overcome windfalls.

What we're on on the right track, is also confirmed by hunting passes - signs of clan affiliation, which were often cut down on trees, marking the boundaries of hunting grounds. Our guide, Alexander Reomidovich Morozov, demonstrates passes carved out about a hundred years ago.

“The banner of another person on the Rossoshina means: do not go to my wind, to my heel, to my axe. This is the law we have in Suzema: don’t let anyone else take my ax,” our other guide, the famous local historian Dina Ivanovna Chuprova, quotes Prishvin’s lines from memory. Another hunting pass - the crow's heel - is mentioned many times in "The Ship Thicket": "Two short shirts are two fingers of a crow's heel, the third is a finger and a leg in one long shirt."

If you look carefully around, you can find other hunting signs - for example, a rusty trap nailed to a tree decades ago.

There are only a few kilometers left to the Thicket. As we approach, we are greeted by a hunting hut, and, a little further, an ancient barn - a squat building made of logs, as if straight out of the pages of a fairy tale.

It’s difficult to say how old this barn is; on the roof the layer of moss reaches a thickness of 15-20 centimeters. It was in these places that Onisim, the hero of the “Ship Thicket”, the guardian of the protected forest, could well have lived: “It so happened in the Komi region that someone very old, who had lost the strength to work in the family, went to the Zvonkaya Slaughter and lived there.”

The last obstacle on the way to the Thicket. Windfalls that had to be overcome along the entire route,
here they played into our hands. If there had not been a fallen tree on the way, we would have had to ford the not too wide, but stormy and rather cool Poch, a tributary of the Mezen.

The spruce wilds completely unexpectedly end, and huge pine trees – 30-40 meters each – open up to the view. Understanding immediately comes - here it is, the famous Prishvin Ship Thicket. Because of the purity and High Quality This thicket of pines was named Korabelnaya - the possibility of using the unique forest for the needs of the shipbuilding and aviation industries was considered. Fortunately, the Thicket has been preserved, and in 1989, shortly after the famous journalist Oleg Larin visited these places together with the director of the Ertomsky forestry enterprise Nikolai Kovrizhnykh, the Thicket was given the status of a botanical reserve.

“The trees there are so clean that there are no knots at great heights, and under the trees there is white reindeer moss, and it is also clean and warm: you get down on your knees and it just crunches and you feel like you’re on a carpet. Then it seems to a person as if these trees, rising towards the sun, are lifting him with them.”

40-meter, 500-year-old pine trees reach into the sky, and carpets of white moss spread under your feet.

The “carpets” of the protected forest are a different story: while admiring the natural patterns under your feet, you can easily lose yourself and get lost among the hundred-year-old pines.

You have to move through the protected forest very carefully - you are afraid of accidentally touching a mushroom or catching a bush with berries.

There are mushrooms and scatterings of berries here - literally at every step.

It’s worth looking at the pine trees stretching tens of meters into the sky, and you understand why Prishvin was so impressed by this place. “The thicket of a ship is of such strength and beauty that each tree is matched, tree to tree, so often that the one that is supposed to fall cannot fall: it leans against another and stands as if alive.”

There is very little time for a walk through the thicket - we set out on the way back,

carefully, so as not to disturb the fragile balance of this place, walking through fields of moss and mushrooms.

The general impression of the Ship Thicket, especially after a long wandering through the Komi-taiga and swamps: this place literally glows, here you are overwhelmed by a feeling of calm and harmony.

The way back is again two dozen kilometers through the taiga and windfalls in the pouring rain.

Wandering around the bolts, you understand that the Ship Thicket, unfortunately (although perhaps fortunately), is not suitable for tourism. To attract travelers, it is necessary to do great job, we need at least some semblance of eco-paths and parking lots; if tourists appear, we will also need rangers and guides. In the meantime, the Thicket remains impregnable, practically untouched by civilization, a pine oasis among the wild Komi forests.

The trip to the Ship Thicket was organized by the Komi Tourism Agency with the support of the administration of the Udora region, the Komiaviatrans company and the organizer of tourist routes in the area - Ozherelye Udory LLC.

The main characters of M. Prishvin’s fairy tale “The Thicket of the Ship” are taiga resident Vasily Veselkin and a hunter named Manuylo. Since childhood, Vasya Veselkin has been trying to figure out what truth is. Forester Antipych told him that there is only one truth for everyone, the real truth. Antipych also said that truth has no words, that it is all in deeds. The old forester liked to repeat that one should not pursue happiness one by one, but everyone should pursue the truth together.

One day, Antipych and Vasya were choosing a pine tree that would be suitable for making plywood. In the area where they lived, there was only one such pine tree left. It was tall, its trunk was smooth, without a single knot, and only a few people could grasp this pine tree at once.

Antipych noted with regret that this is the last such pine in these places. But then he told Vasya that in the north, in the Komi region, in immeasurable forests, there is a protected Ship Bowl, in which such pines stand so densely that a dead tree cannot fall to the ground. Local residents protect this thicket from prying eyes and consider this place a shrine.

Many years later. The old forester died, and Vasily Veselkin took his place. He got married, and now his daughter Nastya and son Mitrash were growing up. When did the Great Patriotic War, Vasily Veselkin went to the front. There he was seriously wounded right hand and ended up in the hospital. The doctors wanted to amputate the arm, but Vasily managed to persuade them not to do this.

In the hospital, Vasily met a forest hunter named Manuylo. The hunter was from the banks of the Pinega River. Manuylo told Veselkin that they did not want to accept him into the collective farm along with their hunting grounds. Vasily advised him to go to Moscow, to Kalinin. Manuilo decided to follow his advice.

From the forest hunter, Vasily again heard about the extraordinary Ship Thicket. Veselkin decided that such a quantity of high-quality forest could benefit the state and, after being discharged from the hospital, he went in search of this protected place, enlisting the support of the authorities. Before this, he sent a letter to his family, about whose life he knew nothing.

And there was trouble at home. Vasily Veselkin's wife received the news that her husband was dead and died of grief. The children, Mitrasha and Nastya, were left orphans. Having received their father's letter, they decided to go in search of him and went by train to Vologda, from where they could get to Pinega.

In Vologda they were lucky enough to meet Manuylo, who had already been to Moscow, Kalinin’s and was heading to his native place. It so happened that Manuylo did not understand that Mitrasha and Nastya were the children of his hospital comrade Veselkin. But he still took them with him, deciding to help the orphans find their father.

They set off on rafts. During this journey, which took place in early spring, Manuila had to part with the children due to urgent work for timber rafting. Their paths diverged. Mitrasha and Nastya decided to continue their search on their own, with help from everyone who came along the way.

Meanwhile, Vasily Veselkin successfully reached the Ship Thicket. Possessing an assertive character and striving to achieve the triumph of true truth, he persuaded local residents sign papers agreeing to cut down the protected forest.

But Vasily did not know that the war would soon end and there was no longer such an urgent need to cut down the Ship Thicket for the needs of the front. However, Manuylo knew about the imminent end of the war. During a meeting with Kalinny, he spoke about Veselkin’s intention to cut down the protected forest for the benefit of the state. Kalinin did not support this idea and said that protected forests should be protected. He gave Manuila documents confirming the need to preserve the Ship Thicket and asked him to catch up with Veselkin to stop the destruction of the reserve.

Due to problems with rafting the timber, Manuylo was forced to delay and was almost late for the start of felling. But he made it on time, and on the way he caught up with Mitrasha and Nastya. Soon a meeting of all the main characters took place in the Ship Thicket. Vasily Veselkin met with his children, preparations for deforestation were stopped, and the Ship Thicket remained unharmed.

That's how it is summary fairy tales.

The main idea of Prishvin’s fairy tale “The Thicket of Ships” is that the true truth is where the greatest benefit to all people comes from. Vasily Veselkin was right in his own way when he convinced people to give up the Ship Thicket for the needs of the front. But he did not know that the war was ending, and that for the upcoming peacetime, the preservation of the protected forest was a more important state task. The forest was saved thanks to the hunter Manuila, who managed to attend a reception with one of the top officials of the state and enlisted his support.

The fairy tale “The Thicket of the Ship” teaches you to be persistent in achieving your goal. Mitrasha and Nastya, left without a mother, decided to find their father, who was lost in the remote taiga. They faced many trials, but the children managed to achieve their goal and found their father.

I liked the main characters in the fairy tale: Vasily Veselkin, his children, Nastya and Mitrasha, the hunter Manuylo. They sincerely love nature and treat it with care, understanding that the forest is their home. Adults sincerely worry about the results of the case.

What proverbs fit Prishvin’s fairy tale “The Thicket of the Ship”?

Seven times measure cut once.
A rolling stone gathers no moss.
Don’t chase happiness alone, but chase truth together.

Part Eleven

Ship thicket

Chapter thirty-six

And it came down further that at the very time when Manuylo was walking along the river to his path beyond Pinega, Mitrasha and Nastya were riding there to Pinega, on the same ice horse. They were well supplied with food and given instructions with precise signs on how to find the protected forest. In the upper reaches of the Pinega, they handed over their “little ice” to where it should be and went forward, to Komi, where along the common path, where they hunted with their lutik, leaving riddles in the sensitive land with their tracks.

At first, it seemed to them just to follow a common path: forest and forest: they grew up in the forest. But suddenly it turned out that suzem is not at all what we call a forest.

In our nature, the cuckoo is a sad bird, and people especially feel this when a cuckoo flies to an uncovered forest.

It seems that we are missing something most precious, which is why, perhaps, cuckoos exist in the world.

And now here it is, the very country where all the cuckoos live.

Each cuckoo lures you somewhere and immediately deceives you: you walk and walk, but there is nothing there - all the same scary, prickly trees, and your foot is buried in long moss.

Perhaps this was the way a person’s thoughts turned during wartime, that other children had nowhere to go if their father was killed and their mother died of grief.

Once, one of the pedestrians wanted to get drunk on the side of the common path in the “Unclosed Well” and shouted from there:

Come, come here!

Passers-by turned to the well and were also surprised: the “unclosed well” was now closed.

And below, on the ground washed out by water, there were prints of small feet.

Good kids! - all passers-by agreed among themselves.

And this is what the ranger understood after analyzing life in the forest.

What a beautiful, dry, white path this is, how many wonderful bends it has. And here’s what’s most amazing: thousands of people, perhaps over thousands of years, have walked among them, perhaps you and I have walked among them more than once, my dear friend, but it’s not me and you alone who are the creators of this path. One walked, the other cut off this trail from the toe or heel. It is surprising that all the people who passed did not lead their common path, like a rail, straight. But the common path, windingly beautiful and flexible, has retained a special character, and this is not my character and not yours, my dear friend, but some new person created by us all.

The guys are not simple, said passers-by, these are smart guys coming.

And it was all because Mitrasha and Nastya heeded the advice of good people: they avoided all meetings, and, as soon as they heard steps or voices, they left the path and, invisible, became silent.

So they all walked and walked slowly, spending the night, when necessary, in a forest hut, or even at the nudiya, as they say here: “On the sentukhe.”

Once they came to some river, and were very happy about it, and decided to spend the night here, at the Nudya.

On the same side of the river there was an infinitely bright glade with small pine trees in the swamp, and from there the first snorts and mutterings of the evening grouse could be heard.

Mitrasha told Nastya:

“We’ll just chop some spruce branches,” Nastya answered, “for bedding, and we don’t need a hut: we’ll spend the night in the house.”

That's what we decided.

In addition, there was a lot of last year’s hay in the house, and you can sleep in hay even in the cold.

A thousand people over thousands of years listened to this lullaby of nature, and everyone understood what this song was about, but no one said a firm word about it.

We all know this great law of all life: everyone wants to live, and life is good, and it is necessary, absolutely necessary to live well, life is worth living and even suffering for it.

In this lullaby of the Suradis of the earth, there is for a person a hint of a time when in the silence of plant life only the wind rustled, but there were no living voices yet.

Anyone who has heard this lullaby song at least once in his life while spending the night outdoors will sleep as if he were sleeping, and heard everything, and was also singing.

It was a bright northern night, when the sun does not set, but only hides for a while, just to change into morning clothes.

A small glowing bird at the very top of a tall tree whistled to us that the sun was changing where it saw it and asking everyone to be silent.

Farewell!

And all the cuckoos and all the suradya fell silent, and from all the sounds on the water only a crimson spot remained, connecting evening and morning.

No one could have said how much time passed in silence, with only a crimson spot on the river: everyone probably took a little nap.

And suddenly Mitrasha heard from the other side, from all the surads, the great, triumphant cry of the cranes:

The first golden ray burst from the reviving sun.

Hello! - the current man snorted..

Hello!

The meeting of the sun ends with the signal of the current, calling for battle:

Then hundreds of red lights on their heads, white tail lights and black lyre lights - feathers shimmering iridescently in the light of the rising sun - united in a living, joyful trembling.

“I wish I could wake up Nastya,” thought Mitrash, “we don’t have such currents.”

And, whispering something in her ear, he lifted her and showed her.

Nastya had never seen currents and quietly asked:

What are they doing?

Mitrasha, grinning at the girl, replied:

The porridge is being cooked.

And as we sometimes do, after thinking a little, he said to himself: “Nothing special.”

The black grouse were little frightened by Mitrash's shot and began again either to pray to the sun or to cook porridge.

Chapter thirty-seven

And how briskly they go!

Nastya! - said Mitrasha when it was evening, - don’t you think it’s not us who are walking, but the trees themselves are walking past us.

“But of course,” Nastya answered, “it always seems so.” “And as it seems,” said Mitrasha, “these trees, which are closer to us, move quickly, but further away from us they are quieter, and the farther from us they get quieter and quieter.”

And there’s a star, and I look at it, it’s still in place, and no matter how much we walk, it will still remain in its place.

It seems that she is walking ahead of us and showing us the way.

After thinking a little, Mitrasha also said:

How can it be that a star appears now: here, in the north, the sky remains bright all night. This is most likely not a star. Show me where she is!

Nastya had nothing to show: the star was no longer there, the star was lost.

“You made it up,” said Mitrasha.

And at the same time, suddenly a strong gust of wind rustled through the trees, and the forest became dark.

And what a noise it made!

No one in our ordinary forests knows how the wind rustles in the land.

But why did it happen that our little wanderers decided to go out for the night, looking somewhere even further in the dense land?

This misfortune happened because, according to the plan drawn up in Nizhnyaya Toima, the last rossoshina of the Koda River was supposed to go away in the summer.

And so it was. The last Rossoshina arrived, it was carried out in the summer, through this the wanderers were confident that they would soon achieve their goal and hastened to go to the northeast.

We arrived at Crow's Heel at five rubles and turned onto the path.

Now, according to the plan, it was necessary to follow the path until the voice of the river flowing to Mezen, the Porbysh River, was heard.

It was then that it became evening, and a dispute began about the star: was it there or did it seem so.

It was also said in the plan that as soon as the sound of the river is heard, there is no need to stick to the path anymore - why is it there? You need to leave the path, go straight to the river and along the bank to the nests, cross them, and then close to the shore there will be that same pond where the people's favorites live - loach and crucian carp. There is even a stove near this clean pond to scoop up water to drink or cook something for yourself. There is a hut on the mountain, and a passer-by always leaves dry firewood, a piece of wood and matches in it. And this hut is the last one on the way to the Ship Thicket. From this place you need to climb three mountains (three river terraces), and at the top there will be the protected Ship Thicket.

When it began to get dark, Mitrasha and Nastya walked and tried to listen to the silence: would they hear rare sounds.

It would only take a little while to hear the river speaking towards our soul, but the wind intercepted the voice of the water and scattered peaceful sounds in the noise of the forest.

It was then that pitch darkness fell in the forest, the path disappeared from under our feet and rain poured down.

What is this northern forest if there is no human path under your feet? These huge inversions, mossy with time, turn into bears, and each one roars.

Try to shout, call a friend with our wonderful native word: “Ay!”

And the word will immediately return to you, powerless, insignificant and funny.

Just, just let the human path slip from under your feet, and you’re lost.

And the children missed her...

Chapter thirty-eight

So, children, the old people said, don’t chase warm happiness alone: this pursuit of a warm life does not always lead to good.

The boys, due to the agility of their years, did not listen well to the old men, but they pretended to agree. And, just to give a voice, they said on their own:

And if we don’t chase after a warm life, then what else can we achieve?

The old people rejoiced at this attention too; they just wanted something to grab onto and lay out before the young people the rules of their life experience.

And they pointed again to the Three Mountains, where frail groves grew in the warm wind, and on a large mountain, in the free winds, the world's first Ship Thicket rose.

The tree is not an example for us,” the young people defended themselves, “the tree stands, but we achieve.”

Well, yes,” the elders answered, “you are achieving it!” the tree also reaches: it grows. And we, people, not only race, but also stand for something.

And, after thinking a little, they also said:

We are also not against a good life, only we stand for living well and working, and not chasing happiness alone: look, a lonely tree is blowing in the wind behind Teplaya Mountain, and in the Ship Thicket every tree stands for everyone, and all the trees stand for each one. Got it?

“We understand,” the young people answered, hiding a smile.

Of course, the young people also gradually grew older, and many later remembered the words of their fathers and grandfathers, but they remembered them less and less.

And he’s drawn to go there again, to look for what he’s forgotten.

He will remember, be delighted, and then, in the warmth of his light, he will forget and doze off.

And the Ship Thicket stands and stands.

And every new person who comes here will certainly, looking at her, remember something beautiful about him and, after a short time, immediately forget everything.

The black grouse sings about this at dawn, the streams are all about this: wonderful in nature!

Now it seemed to him as if he was going along some completely new path and towards something unprecedented, and when he encountered his own challenges and noticed deer paths, he asked himself:

How could I, then, still stupid, not seeing anything ahead, correctly notice my future path?

And, waking up, he smiled at himself, like a little one, and repeated to himself, like a child:

That's it!

He crossed the river along familiar nests, went up to a pond where loaches and crucian carp lived, and went up even higher, to a hut surrounded by birch trees.

Feels good! And it seems that the voice of another good person is heard from somewhere:

It was I who left behind you a bunch of dry splinters and matches. I cut down a gazebo for you there, near the pond. Now birch trees have grown near the bench.

Black smoke pours out of the forehead, rises up and stops there, and little by little the hut is filled with dense smoke from above, lower and lower.

When the smoke descends so low that its black sky hangs over the very head of a naked man and a little more - and he will suffocate in it, a naked man with a steaming body takes off his clothes and, covering himself with them, lies down on the bench opposite the stove forehead.

Then everything on earth seems so simple.

There is no other kindness on earth than what one person did for an unknown friend, and this one, grateful, accepts and tomorrow in the same way will thank some other person unknown to him.

Perhaps it will seem to another person from a big city that he was wandering somewhere, in a big city, and then, saved by the hand of another by this fire, he found his home, and he would want to return the person to this original goodness...

The man’s words were so clear that Manuilo jumped up, got dressed, took the gun, and went out.

The dawn was breaking, the river was answering the dawn, and the boy with a long gun, familiar to Manuila, and behind him a girl with a folding tent, were crossing the black stones.

But there is no return for us, and our home is not near a fire in a protected forest, not behind, but all in front.

Chapter thirty-nine

The ground under the Ship Thicket did not stand as a flat floor, but rolled in greenish-white ridges similar to moonlight. As you walked, these ridges of reindeer moss were almost invisible to your feet, but to your eyes it seemed as if waves of moonlight were changing one into another in front of you. You look at these ridges, and you are also drawn to go where they roll themselves. That’s why everyone unfamiliar with the area inevitably comes along these ridges to the Zvonka Sich along the Third Mountain, which is open to the entire distance.