Mikhail Alexandrovich Sholokhov

Collected Works in eight volumes

Volume 1. Stories

From the publisher

The collected works of the outstanding Soviet writer Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov is published by the State Publishing House fiction in eight volumes.

The first volume will include early stories, created by the writer in 1923–1926;

volumes two through five will comprise the epic “Quiet Don”;

the sixth and seventh books will include the first and second books of the novel “Virgin Soil Upturned”;

The eighth volume will include stories and essays from different years, literary and journalistic articles, speeches and performances by the writer.

Born in 1905 in the Kruzhilin farmstead, Veshenskaya village, former Don region. Father is Russian, mother is Ukrainian.

Until 1918, I studied at the gymnasium, but the civil war that began at that time interrupted my studies, and in 1918 I began to work. In five years I changed many professions. He began publishing in 1923. Since then literary activity became my main profession in life.

I reviewed the early stories, as well as the text of “The Quiet Don” and the first book of “Virgin Soil Upturned” for this edition.

M. Sholokhov.

Stories

On the table are cartridge cases that smell of burnt gunpowder, a lamb bone, a field map, a report, a bridle with the scent of horse sweat, a loaf of bread. All this is on the table, and on a hewn bench, moldy from the damp wall, with his back pressed tightly against the windowsill, Nikolka Koshevoy, the squadron commander, is sitting. The pencil is in his frozen, motionless fingers. Next to the old posters spread out on the table is a half-filled questionnaire. The rough leaf says sparingly: Koshevoy Nikolay. Squadron commander. Digger. Member of the RKSM.

Against the “age” column, the pencil slowly writes: 18 years.

Nikolka is broad-shouldered and looks beyond his years. His eyes, lined with radiant wrinkles, and his back, stooped like an old man, make him look old.

The boy, the boy, is a green cougar, - they say jokingly in the squadron, - but look for someone else who could eliminate two gangs almost without damage and lead the squadron into battles and battles for six months no worse than any old commander!

Nikolka is ashamed of her eighteen years. The pencil always crawls against the hated “age” column, slowing down its run, and Nikolka’s cheekbones blaze with an annoying blush. Nikolkin’s father is a Cossack, and on his father’s side he is a Cossack. He remembers, as if half asleep, when he was five or six years old, his father put him on his service horse.

Hold on to your mane, son! - he shouted, and his mother smiled at Nikolka from the door of the cooking room, turning pale, and with wide-open eyes she looked at the little legs that circled the sharp spine of the horse, and at her father, who was holding the reins.

That was a long time ago. Nikolkin’s father disappeared during the German war, as if he sank into the water. Not a word of him, not a ghost. Mother died. From his father, Nikolka inherited a love of horses, immeasurable courage and a mole, the same as his father’s, the size of a pigeon’s egg, on his left leg, above the ankle. Until he was fifteen, he hung around among the workers, and then he begged for a long overcoat and, with the Red Regiment passing through the village, went to attack Wrangel. This summer, Nikolka swam in the Don with the military commissar. He, stuttering and twisting his shell-shocked head, said, slapping Nikolka on her stooped and tanned back:

You are that... that... You are happy... happy! Well, yes, happy! A mole is, they say, happiness.

Nikolka bared his boiling teeth, dived and, snorting, shouted from the water:

You're lying, weirdo! I’ve been an orphan since childhood, I’ve been a worker all my life, but he’s a blessing!..

And he swam onto the yellow spit that hugged the Don.

The hut where Nikolka lives is located on a ravine above the Don. From the windows you can see the green splashing Obdonye and the blued steel of the water. At night, during a storm, the waves knock under the yar, the shutters yearn, choking, and it seems to Nikolka that water is creeping insinuatingly into the cracks of the floor and, as it arrives, shaking the hut.

He wanted to move to another apartment, but he never did, he stayed until the fall. On a frosty morning, Nikolka came out onto the porch, breaking the fragile silence with the chime of his shod boots. He went down to the cherry orchard and lay down on the grass, stained with tears and gray with dew. You can hear how in the barn the owner persuades the cow to stand still, the heifer moos demandingly and in a deep voice, and streams of milk are heard against the walls of the chicken barn.

A gate creaked in the yard and a dog began to bark. Platoon commander's voice:

Commander at home?

Nikolka rose up on his elbows.

Here I am! Well, what else is there?

A messenger arrived from the village. He says the gang made its way from the Salsk district, took over the Grushinsky state farm...

Bring him here.

A horse is pulled by a messenger to the stable, then doused with hot water. In the middle of the yard, she fell on her front legs, then on her side, wheezed abruptly and briefly and died, looking with glassy eyes at the chained dog, choking on an angry bark. Because she died because there were three crosses on the package brought by express, and with the package the express person rode forty miles without stopping.

Nikolka read that the chairman was asking him to come out with the squadron to help, and he went to the room, clutching his saber, thinking wearily: “I should study to go somewhere, but here is a gang... The military commissar is ashamed: they say, you can’t write the words correctly, and also a squadron... What does it have to do with me that I didn’t manage to graduate from parish school? He’s an eccentric... And here’s a gang... There’s blood again, and I’m tired of living like this... I’m sick of everything...”

He went out onto the porch, loading his carbine as he walked, and his thoughts, like horses on a well-trodden road, raced: “I should go to the city... I should study...”

He walked past a dead horse into the stable, looked at the black ribbon of blood running from his dusty nostrils, and turned away.

Along the hummocky summer grass, along the ruts licked by the winds, the mousey roadside plant curls up, the quinoa and puffballs burst thickly and terry. Once upon a time, hay was transported along the road to the threshing floors, frozen in the steppe with amber splashes, and the thorn road lay in a mound near the telegraph poles. The pillars run into the whitish autumn haze, they step over logs and beams, and past the pillars on a shiny path the ataman leads a gang - fifty Don and Kuban Cossacks, dissatisfied with the Soviet government. For three days, like a fed-up wolf from a flock of sheep, they leave on roads and virgin lands without roads, and behind him, in nazir, is Nikolka Koshevoy’s detachment.

Notorious people in the gang, service-minded, experienced, and yet the ataman is deeply thoughtful: he stands up in his stirrups, scans the steppe with his eyes, counts miles to the blue border of the forests stretching on the other side of the Don.

Alexey Sholokhov

Dedicated to my wife and son

Part one

“Earth,” Alexey carefully typed in the search engine window. I pressed the Enter key and Google returned one hundred and eight million options. No, that's wrong. So he won’t find a suitable option until the end of time. He didn't know how to work on the Internet. Colleagues advised me to type in Google or Yandex what you need and... As they say, let the seeker find. Lesha didn’t know where it was said, but these words perfectly characterized his actions. He had a million (rubles, of course), and he knew what to do with it. There wasn't enough for an apartment. He doesn’t need a room in a two-story building with a toilet on the street in some Mukhosransk. He wanted his own home, which, quite naturally, he also didn’t have enough for. Therefore, he decided to buy land, mortgage it to the bank and build a house with this money. Simple as two and two.

He only looked at three options. Already on the third site he found what he was looking for.

The site was located in a residential village. Shops, kindergarten and school. What else does? True, a little further than he expected. The site was located in Tula region, forty kilometers from Tula, in close proximity to Donskoy and Novomoskovsk. That is, there was no need to worry about work. But he wasn't worried. Bye.

Twelve color photographs showed the site in all its glory. Alexei’s wife, when he showed her these pictures, was horrified. There was something eerie in this area, something that made you freeze and then your heart beat faster. That is why Lesha liked him. What did he like there, he was in love with him.

For some reason the pictures were taken in winter, which made it even more creepy. A round well, like a set for the movie “The Ring,” is hidden under the clawed paw of a faceless bush. A gray building - either a garage or an outbuilding - stretched along a collapsed fence. And finally, what attracted Alexey’s attention most of all: the ruins of a burnt house were located in the thirteenth (?) photo. He remembered well that when he entered the page of this advertisement, there were twelve photographs. Six on top and six on bottom. One under the other. Alyosha left the ad and returned again. Twelve. I started scrolling through the photographs in enlarged form. First, second... The photos were in order - not a single one was missed. Twelfth, thirteenth. Some kind of damn thing.

“Why am I attached to these photographs?! Maybe it’s designed this way to attract buyers.”

Alexey looked through the pictures again and stopped at the ruins of a burnt house. He could not explain even to himself what attracted him to this skeleton of a house that once breathed life. He was simply in love with these ruins, and the decision immediately came. Whatever it costs him, Alexey will buy this plot.

* * *

Alexey agreed to meet with the manager at ten in the morning. Lesha arrived at the place at nine. He walked up to the rusty gate and pulled the handle. The door creaked and opened. He decided to look at the site without the manager's colorful praise. Walk around, and then listen to the outpourings of a person interested in selling.

The asphalt path was riddled with cracks, and last year's leaves mixed with mud lay underfoot. Everything was here, just like in the photos from the site. Everything is just as dead, as if he never went anywhere, but stayed in his apartment and looked at the photos. If you like, in 3D. But Lesha was not repelled by this; on the contrary, he was so attracted that he was ready to agree to any price. He will buy this plot for any money, just to breathe life into this piece of land.

About five meters from the gate there was a rickety box of either a garage or the remnant of an old house. As far as Strakhov could judge, while still there, in a warm Moscow apartment, he realized that there had once been two houses on the site. Not necessarily at the same time, but they were definitely there. He walked up to a three by five building. Alyosha examined the walls - the plaster was crumbling in some places, and the lathing nailed to the logs was clearly visible through the bald spots. At the right corner he noticed an uneven cut from a chainsaw. Yes, the verdict is final: this building definitely had a continuation. And it was demolished in order to build a new building.

Strakhov quickly got his bearings and went to where, as he remembered from pictures from the site, the foundation of the former house was located. Lesha approached the bushes with yellowed foliage, parted the branches - the leaves flew to his feet. The nine by nine square (or so the website said) was right in front of him. Lesha climbed onto it and examined all (he already thought it was his) possessions. And only now, from a meter high, Strakhov noticed the well.

He walked along the foundation of the future (his future) house, jumped onto the frozen gravel and slowly walked to a round well made of stone. He liked that kind of thing. Cuckoo clocks, carved shutters, wells. Hell yes! If it were up to him, he would have hung the yoke in his Moscow apartment. Approaching the edge of the well, Lesha stopped. For the first time since he found himself at the station, Strakhov felt uneasy. Before that, he had easily looked into a small coal shed, then into a larger shed, and through the cloudy glass of the windows of the rest of the building he tried to see something, but here he seemed to feel some kind of threat.

Lesha took hold (I must admit, he forced himself to take hold of it) by the handle of the lid and began to slowly lift it.

I see you have already looked around here?

Strakhov jerked and with a noisy exhalation lowered the lid back.

* * *

In front of him stood a tall guy in a coat and a scarf around his neck a la Ostap Bender. He kept shifting a small purse from his hands to his arm and vice versa.

Yegor Spitsyn,” the guy extended his hand to Alexei, dressed in a black glove. - Sales Manager. We called you on the phone.

Yes, yes,” Lesha shook the manager’s hand and barely restrained himself from shouting: “I’m buying!” I’m buying!”

Well, then let’s go to the… - The manager laughed. - What's left of the house.

Spitsyn opened the padlock and they entered a dark room. Lesha looked into the room, then looked at the window from the street. That's why he couldn't see anything through the glass. There was no window in the room. Someone planted it from the inside.

What? - The manager raised his eyebrows in surprise.

What about him?

He's not inside.

Egor did the same thing as Lesha a minute ago. Then he looked at Strakhov and shrugged his shoulders.

You never know. Maybe the old owner decided that there was too much light for him.

“Or he was hiding from someone,” thought Lesha and followed the seller.

Egor pressed two buttons of the electric plugs located above the meter just outside the door. Lesha, I must admit, did not immediately understand that these things were from the category of switching equipment. Now such devices can only be seen in disarray.

Spitsyn, in his own way, as if he had been here several times a day, turned on the light, sat down at the table and took out a laptop from his bag. And only when he opened it, he invited Lesha to sit down.

So, Alexey Petrovich. You have already seen wealth that is worth everything... - Yegor clicked on the keyboard, looked into the monitor and said: - Only three hundred thousand rubles.

Strakhov almost fell out of his chair with delight. He could have expected anything, any figure instead of the one indicated on the website, which was doubled, tripled. He was ready for any high price. But like this? Yes, these real estate sellers may surprise you. Reducing the price three times, that’s... What if?..

Sorry? Did you say three hundred?

Egor once again ran his fingers over the keys, turned the laptop towards Strakhov and, smiling, said:

Do you see? There is no mistake.

Indeed, now under the photographs of the site there was a figure equal to that just announced by the manager. Three hundred thousand rubles.

“Where was I looking? Well, so much the better..."

Until today, the price was indeed somewhat higher,” Spitsyn said, as if reading Alexei’s thoughts. - But yesterday, literally after your call to me, it was decided to reduce it.

Better. Strakhov was not a seller and somehow did not gravitate toward commerce, but even he understood that if a product sits for a long time and no one takes it, the price needs to be reduced. So? Exactly. But not in this case. They get a call from a person who is ready to look at the plot, and perhaps (in this case, even very possible) and buy it. You just need to listen to what a potential buyer expects from them, and then reduce the price. Only then, and nothing else. Something's wrong here.

Why such a gap?

“I don’t understand you,” said Yegor and began to assemble the laptop.

Alexey was afraid that now this sales manager would be offended and raise the price. Damn the price! Alexey knew that no price would scare him. Within reason, of course. He can simply collect his junk from the table, close the kitchen shed and leave for his managerial business.

“Well, why are you wandering around? Take it while they give it."

No no. Nothing. Where do I need to sign?

* * *

Well, the Moor has done his job, the Moor can leave,” Yegor whispered and pressed the gas pedal.

Where did he get this phrase from? The devil knows. No matter where it came from, it perfectly characterized the completion of the transaction. This fucking deal. A year ago, when he foolishly bought this plot for fifty thousand rubles, Yegor was happy. Still would! He could earn at least a million from it. Could. And so he thought for three months, until... He remembered with horror the nightmares that had tormented him for more than six months.

Egor turned on the radio to distract himself. He was pleased with the station he caught. Retro FM was his favorite. And only here, on this eighty-kilometer stretch of the M4 from the turn to Tula and to the Korni nursery, could he enjoy the songs of yesteryear. Songs that were created long before he was born.

Yegor himself was a villager. That's why he couldn't tolerate his own kind. He hated the dirt, the smell of manure and the noise made by livestock. Yegor fled from this. He didn’t even give a damn about the fact that his father was a senile drunkard and his mother was a disabled person of the first group. No, he helped them, but only financially. But how can you help a drunk? And to hell with them. Let them drink, they will die faster. Yegor wasn’t even sure that he would go to bury them. Spitsyn knew one thing: that he would sell his parents’ house for at least half a million rubles.

He was embarrassed by his origins, and not only because of his parents’ addiction to alcohol. Egor came up with a story. Born in Moscow, at the age of ten he moved to Kaluga. There he studied at the College of Economics and Management and came to work for small homeland. Vo bent. Go check it out. In general, there was little benefit from the nonsense about being born in the capital, moreover, there was no benefit from it, but Spitsyn felt better, more confident. If he had told everyone the truth that before entering Kaluga college he mixed manure in a village of thirty households, and on weekends he went to discos in Duminichi - a village slightly larger than his Palik - nothing would have changed for an outsider. Well, a person works as a sales manager, what difference does it make where he was born? But Spitsyn didn’t think so. If it happens that he spills the beans, his self-confidence will immediately leave him - and that’s it, screw it. He will not be able to sell huts at inflated prices, he will not be able to sell them at all at any prices anymore.

He has already seen Moscow skyscrapers. To be honest, Yegor still didn’t know whether it was Moscow or Vidnoye, but he was pleased to think that he had already arrived. No more than five kilometers to the Moscow Ring Road, turn right, sixteen along the Ring Road to the east - and he’s home. Home, damn it! At home! Where there are no these annoying parents, always complaining about their health. Where all this country crap isn't there.

Egor was distracted for a second to look in the rearview mirror. He was overtaken by a Chinese crane with its boom raised.

What a fool,” Spitsyn smiled.

His smile fell from his lips as soon as the crane's boom crashed into the elevated pedestrian crossing. The plates parted, and, swaying, one of them went down. Egor realized too late that he would be buried along with the careless driver of this Chinese garbage. Before he died, the sales manager saw in the rearview mirror the person he had been dreaming about every night for the last six months.

The Moor has done his job, the Moor can leave,” the dead man whispered and allowed Yegor to enjoy the last second of his life.

* * *

Alexey did not want to leave the site for a long time. He was drawn to the well. How small child breaking a toy to see what's inside. The insides of the well frightened and attracted Strakhov at the same time. Then, nevertheless, mentally punching himself on the wrist, Lesha went out the gate and once again looked at HIS site. He was happy. There are some formalities left that Alexey will forget about in a month. He was HIS now.

Strakhov got into the car. He started the engine and the car slowly rolled towards the city. His thoughts were entirely about the foundation, the well and the bricked-up window of the kitchen-garage, when he noticed a man on the side of the road waving his hand. Lesha slowed down and moved to the side. He looked in the mirror - there was no one on the side of the road. It might seem so. He thought too much about the few buildings on his own property (or rather, he unreasonably elevated them to the level of mystery), which might not have been what he imagined.

Well hello.

Lesha jerked and pressed the signal button.

“I thought you weren’t the timid type,” said the stranger, leaning towards the passenger window.

Why is this? - Alexey asked, barely catching his breath.

Instead of answering, the man straightened up, opened the door and plopped down in a chair. Strakhov, it must be admitted, was slightly offended by the customs of the aborigines, but he (by the way, this was not the first time he caught himself thinking about this) found its advantages in everything, especially here. In general, he liked everything here and even a little more.

“You’re buying a plot of land without water or gas,” the man said as if that explained everything. - By the way, lad, don’t you have a cigarette? Otherwise I left mine in my jacket.

Alexey pointed to the pack lying near the gear lever. And realizing that his “guest” probably left the lighter in his jacket, he pressed in the cigarette lighter.

What kind of problem is there with water? - Lesha asked and handed the heated cigarette lighter to his new acquaintance.

Not really. - The man took a drag. “Over there,” he pointed somewhere across the road, “there’s a pipe.” Central water supply.

Here you go. And you say...

Oh, kid, you don’t know that everything is not so simple. No one will let you break your road. - The man squinted and tilted his head, as if he was waiting for something.

Alexei was tired of this understatement, he could not stand it and asked:

So what should we do?

Ah-ah-ah. “I have a drill that will go under the entire road,” the man said with a smile.

Sly. There will be no job left.

And how much will this miracle of technology cost me?

Well, I’ll take it from mine,” the man smiled slyly, “three hundred and fifty.” Well, as for the visitors...

The pause dragged on. Lesha was already thinking about saying goodbye to this native when he spoke:

I charge a thousand from visitors. By the way, my name is Roma. - The man offered his hand.

Alexey,” Strakhov said and responded to the handshake. - So, then I’m not one of them? - he still ventured to ask.

Nope, kid, you're a newcomer.

Roma said this as if Lesha was never destined to become one of his own.

Listen, Leshka, can I take a couple more from you? - He timidly pointed to the pack.

Strakhov took the pack in his hands, wanted to get a few cigarettes, but changed his mind and gave them all away.

I'll quit.

“Oh, boy, this is such an infection,” he took out a cigarette, twirled it in his fingers and put it on his lips. - Well, lad, when will you come to us again?

Lesha shrugged.

I think in the spring, when it gets warmer.

Come on. We will carry out water. - Roman got out of the car, closed the door and, leaning towards the window, said: - You, kid, are definitely not one of the timid ones.

* * *

Alexey could not work normally. The site and the upcoming construction gave me no rest. Damn planograms and their ilk didn’t even bother me. Strakhov closed the documents for accepting the new point of sale and pressed the Explorer button. He was interested in companies involved in building houses. He found the three most popular. “Zodchiy,” as stated on their website, was a leading company in Russia, but for some reason Alexey was sure that already beyond the Moscow Ring Road he would see puzzled faces at the mention of such a sonorous name. The company offered many projects from garden houses to luxury mansions. But Alexey didn’t like them. Some were repelled by excessive simplicity, some, on the contrary, by luxury. In some, the ceilings were lower than Strakhov was used to seeing. No, he will turn to Zodchy only as a last resort.

The next company, Terem-PRO, was on the house-building market for only two years, but, judging by the reviews found and written, most likely, by “their man,” it managed to make a contribution to the development of humanity. At home by appearance differed little from the houses in Zodchy, but the ceilings pleased with their height, and Terem-PRO clearly did not inflate the prices of its goods.

The site of the third company was unlikely to attract the developer. Gray tones, penciled title pages of subsections. Alexey decided to look through everything, because something interesting could be hidden under the gray veil. He opened the subsection “Two-story houses 9x9”. Simple and tasteful. People didn't bother with big names like "Canadian", "Florida" or "Chancellor". The very first house fascinated Lesha so much that he did not notice Sokolov entering the office. The boss hesitated at the door, and then came up and stood behind Strakhov.

Alexey Petrovich,” Sokolov said quietly.

Lesha jumped, the computer mouse bounced behind the monitor.

Well, well, Alexey Petrovich, don’t be alarmed. It’s worse to live in such a house.

“None of your damn business!” - Strakhov wanted to yell, and he would certainly have yelled if it weren’t for Lyudochka Shirokova from the accounting department.

Albert Sergeevich, can I see you for a minute?

Lyudochka, for you at least for the rest of your life,” Sokolov said and broke into a smile. He leaned over to Strakhov and whispered:

Well, don't relax. I'll be back.

As soon as Sokolov left and closed the door behind him, Alexei jumped up and began pacing back and forth in the office. He hated Sokolov almost as much as he hated his job. This man looked at other people as if he had fifty percent and one share to own everything in this world. And when he, arrogantly, so that everyone could hear, easily suggested that Alexei go bowling next weekend, and then, as if by chance, he added that, no, they wouldn’t go anywhere together, since Strakhov was already good at bowling balls in their own pockets. It was then that Alexey especially felt his insignificance. There's nothing to be done, Sokolov had money, and Alexei just had excellent brains. But nevertheless, Strakhov knew that soon all this would come to an end. A little more - that's all.

* * *

Zhanna thought a lot about her husband's desire to have something of his own. No, she had nothing against buying real estate. On the contrary, she was all in favor. But Zhanna dreamed of something a little different. Namely, about an apartment in Moscow. Even if it’s a one-room apartment on Vykhino, it’s your own apartment. They were afraid to get involved with a mortgage, and at best they were able to save up for a plot of land in some Mukhosransk.

Mikhail Alexandrovich Sholokhov (May 11 (May 24) 1905, Don Army region - February 21, 1984) - Russian Soviet writer, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature (1965 - for the novel “Quiet Don”), classic of Russian literature.

Born in the village of Kruzhilina, Veshenskaya Region, Don Army. Mother, a Ukrainian peasant, served as a maid. She was forcibly married to a Don Cossack-Ataman* Kuznetsov, but left him for a “non-resident”, rich clerk A. M. Sholokhov. Their illegitimate son At first he bore the surname of his mother’s first husband and was considered a “Cossack son” with all the privileges and land share. However, after Kuznetsov’s death (in 1912) and adoption by his own father, he began to be considered a “son of a tradesman,” a “nonresident,” and lost all privileges.
Education was limited to four classes at the gymnasium - then there was war. “Poets are born in different ways,” he would say later. “I, for example, was born from the civil war on the Don.” At the age of 15 he begins independent work. He changed many professions: educational school teacher, employee of the village revolutionary committee, accountant, journalist... Since 1921 - “commissar for bread”, on the surplus appropriation system. For “exceeding authority in grain procurements” he was sentenced by the tribunal to death (replaced with a suspended sentence) ...
In the fall of 1922, M. Sholokhov came to Moscow, tried to enter the workers' school, but was not accepted: he was not a member of the Komsomol. Lives on odd jobs. He attends the literary circle "Young Guard", tries to write, publishes feuilletons and essays in the capital's newspapers and magazines. These experiences prompted the creation of " Don stories" (1926), which immediately attracted attention.
In 1925, M. Sholokhov returned to his homeland and began the main work of his life - the novel "Quiet Don". The first two books of the novel were published in 1928. The publication was accompanied by heated controversy: a novel about the civil war, written by a very young writer with “anathemically talented” (according to M. Gorky), puzzled with its epic scope, skill, and author's position. The publication of the third book of the novel was suspended due to its apparently sympathetic portrayal of the 1919 Upper Don Cossack uprising. In the pause that arose, M. Sholokhov took up a novel about collectivization on the Don - “Virgin Soil Upturned.” There were no complaints about the content of this book. It came out in 1932. And in the same year, the publication of “Quiet Flows the Don” resumed - after Stalin’s intervention in the fate of the book. In 1940, the last parts of this unique epic of the 20th century were published.
For "Quiet Don" M. Sholokhov was awarded the Order of Lenin, and in 1941 he was awarded the Stalin Prize, 1st degree. However, the party activity of the first person in Soviet literature (especially in post-war years) was noticeably superior to the writer’s: neither during the war years (military correspondent of Pravda and Red Star), nor after, almost nothing came from his pen reminiscent of the author of Quiet Don (except, perhaps, the story “The Fate of a Man” , 1957).
In 1960, M. Sholokhov was awarded the Lenin Prize for his second book, “Virgin Soil Upturned,” and in 1965, the Nobel Prize for “Quiet Don.”
Twice Hero Socialist Labor, holder of six Orders of Lenin, honorary doctor of several European universities, Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov died and was buried in the village of Veshenskaya, on the steep bank of the Don.

Current page: 1 (book has 15 pages total) [available reading passage: 4 pages]

Mikhail Sholokhov
Don stories. The fate of man. Stories and novella

Artists I. Godin, O. Vereisky

Introductory article

Fate's high gift

The genealogy of Sholokhov goes back centuries and is lost in the haze of legends and semi-reliable tales.

The ancestors of Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov are natives of the Zaraisky district of the Ryazan province - the Russian land from which the path to the Don has emerged since ancient times. The first mention of the Sholokhovs dates back to 1715. In the Pushkarskaya settlement of the Zaraisky Kremlin lived the Zenovyevs, Kobyzevs, Bocharovs, Maksins, Lezhnevs, Dremins, Fedorovs, Nefedovs, Shcherbakovs and Sholokhovs: Osip Firsovich, Ivan Firsovich, Sergei Firsovich and Vasily Firsovich. According to the plan for the reconstruction of the settlement for 1715, drawn up by V.I. Polyanchev, the writer’s ancestors settled here around 1687.

There were twelve courtyards in Pushkarskaya Sloboda. If you face north, you can determine the location of the residence of Mikhail Alexandrovich’s ancestors. So, right in front of us there will be a staircase to the fortress wall, on the left is Streletskaya Sloboda (the place of residence of the archers), on the right is Pushkarskaya Sloboda. Here in the outermost house lived the gunners Sergei Firsovich and Vasily Firsovich Sholokhov, the great-great-grandfathers of Mikhail Alexandrovich. And opposite and slightly to the left of their house is the Svinushka grove with the Holy Well, next to it there is an Old Believer cemetery, where the ashes of the Zaraisk Sholokhovs and the Edinoverie church rest.

Here are the roots of the writer's family tree.

Zaraysk has changed along with its inhabitants. The family of Sholokhov-gunners was replenished with merchants, prasols, poor townspeople and mediocre entrepreneurs. The descendants of the valiant gunners scattered across the world, among whom were warriors, bitter losers, craftsmen, wild heads, and talented dreamers. Mikhail Ivanovich, the writer’s great-grandfather, was not distinguished by either health or luck. His only son, Mikhail Mikhailovich, with youth rushed about in search of income. Need drove him from one place to another. So he ended up on the Don, where he found work, and soon moved his family here: his wife and two sons - Nikolai and Alexander. The writer's grandfather settled on the Kruzhlin farm. And life began in the Don region.

Mikhail Alexandrovich himself spoke little about his ancestors. It is known about the writer’s father, Alexander Mikhailovich, that he was born in the Zaraisky district of the Ryazan province, came from a philistine background, was Russian, and graduated from a parish school. In 1931, Sholokhov wrote: “My father was a commoner, a native of the Ryazan province, and until his death (1925) he changed professions. He was successively a “shibai” (livestock buyer), sowed grain on purchased Cossack land, served as a clerk in commercial enterprise farm scale, manager of a steam mill, etc.”

Sholokhov forever connected his life with the village of Veshenskaya. He was proud that he was born, raised and lived on the Don, among the Cossacks, to whom the legendary Stepan Razin, the favorite of all, owed his origin Slavic world. Sholokhov was proud of the traditions, military exploits and love of freedom of his fellow countrymen. And there is something to be proud of. The history of the Don Cossacks goes back five centuries, full of glorious and tragic events. In the old days, the Cossacks were a reliable stronghold of the Russian state borders on the Wild Field, in the Caucasian gorges, in the Siberian spaces and the conductor of Russian power there. The Cossack freemen caused a lot of trouble to Moscow (the central government) and even entered into armed clashes with it. But this internal strife, caused in addition to socio-economic reasons by immoderate centralization from above and sometimes immoderate love of freedom from below, does not, however, detract from the important historical role, which the Cossacks played in the formation of the Russian state.

Sholokhov, to whom historical events, associated with the Cossacks were well known, much needed to be rethought. He realized early on that social struggle is more fierce and merciless than war between states. For class struggle knows no peace... And Sholokhov was not only an artist, but also an analyst.

Here it’s time to talk about his rare talent.

It is hardly an accident that we know almost nothing about the inner, spiritual life of young Sholokhov. Born on May 24, 1905 in the Kruzhilinsky village of the village of Vyoshenskaya, Don District. My childhood years were spent in the Kruzhilinsky farm. He graduated from four classes of the gymnasium. In December 1924 he published the first piece of art- the story “Birthmark”, and two years later he begins to write a big novel. And to such an extent he rapidly mastered the heights of artistic mastery and the inimitable art of historical analysis that by September 1927 the first book was completed, and by March 1928 the second book of the immortal “Quiet Don” was completed. It was as if Sholokhov had never been anything else in his life other than a great writer.

For many generations, the Sholokhov phenomenon will long be a mystery. For more than half a century, his work has evoked admiration, shock and surprise: how, how did he, a commoner without a systematic education, manage to comprehend the dialectics of nature and deep meaning tragic contradictions of the century; how could he convey the subtlest movements of the human soul and reveal such truths that, it seemed, could be achieved by a host of historical scientists, philosophers, psychologists, and not by one person. For the multitude of envious people and certified smart people, everything here is clear and simple: a person with a primary education cannot do this. It can’t – that’s all! Why do they need to know that the essence is not in formal education, but in that mysterious power of artistic talent, which gives a feeling of life to every event, every person, every phenomenon that the master touches. It’s like there’s enormous wealth compressed in it. creative imagination, intellectual abilities and intuition. Sholokhov possessed this gift to the highest degree: he saw internal connections between things and instantly comprehended what others were given through years of hard work, and even then not to the fullest extent. This is a special property of talent: his eyes and mind with early childhood absorb the world as a whole; The integrity of life is realized by him without much effort - and comes to life on the pages, in musical notes, on canvas, in stone.

* * *

Who had a great influence on the formation of the consciousness of the future writer? In his 1931 autobiography, Mikhail Alexandrovich dropped the phrase: “Mother... learned to read and write... in order to... write me letters on her own.” Many writers and critics took this recognition very simplistically and began to repeat in unison: the main influence on the formation of Sholokhov’s character, personality, interests and tastes was his mother. It's a delusion. Of course, the son inherited many traits from his mother, but the fact is that in his character Mikhail Alexandrovich was little like his mother. For all her kindness and homeliness, Anastasia Danilovna was a strict and domineering woman. Her son is a man of cheerful disposition, cheerful, very gentle, sensitive to people and surprisingly tactful. And he loved his mother selflessly... Still, everything spiritually enlightened and intellectual came from his father, this was his influence. Alexander Mikhailovich was just as responsive, modest, shy, and also witty, smart and a bookworm. This is how he was known and respected throughout the area. He was well versed in philosophy and loved Russian classical literature. In the house of Alexander Mikhailovich there were always fresh newspapers and magazines, a well-chosen library. There is every reason to assert that the thirst for knowledge, interest in art, that is, the writer’s inner world, were formed under the influence of his father.

Already at the age of twelve, Mikhail loved to reason in philosophical topics. In the pre-war library of Mikhail Sholokhov there were collections of works by Kant, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Spinoza in paperbacks (supplements to the Niva magazine) and books by Hegel - in calico binding with gold embossing. Often he would retire to the philosopher’s volume, immersing himself in conversation with him.

Mikhail Alexandrovich learned to read at the age of five and was friends with books all his life. He read a lot, his interests were extremely wide - from space research to books on agriculture. Naturally, he knew Russian perfectly well and foreign classics. Memory (and Sholokhov’s memory was phenomenal and remained so until his last days!) firmly preserved a lot of emotions, facts, realities of life, poems by a variety of poets. If he wanted, he could spend hours reading Bunin, Tyutchev, Pushkin, Lermontov, Koltsov, Byron, Shelley. But he never tried to show off his knowledge, although he loved to read some poem or an appropriate excerpt from the work of his favorite author.

Sholokhov was seventeen years old when the whirlpool of events pulled him into its frantic whirlpool. In the first months of 1922, the situation became more complicated; the Cossacks began to resist the tax policy of the authorities. The district is receiving reports of concealment of grain, failure to submit taxes and the death of tax inspectors... Having completed the preparatory courses, Mikhail Sholokhov began on May 17 to fulfill the duties of the industrial inspector of the village of Bukanovskaya. On August 31, 1922, the village tax inspector Mikhail Sholokhov was removed from his position, in which he remained for three and a half months. This ended his career as a civil servant forever. Subsequently, he was unable to reach such responsible administrative heights. The period of searching for one’s path in the field of life began, strewn, among other things, with the fragments of illusions, plans and dreams...

Where did this young man draw strength from, breaking through the thick layer of material disadvantages, limited opportunities and arrogance of the capital's intellectuals? Is anyone, after the chilling shocks caused by two death sentences, able to maintain presence of mind, not lose the love of life, a sense of kindness and admiration for the beauty of the universe? It’s time to think about all this. Not everything here lies on the surface, but without this it is impossible to truly understand the charm and philosophical depth of his creations. And what internal torment and pain a person must overcome, seeing the triumph of evil and injustice in the world around him! How to resist them and not allow them to drown out a natural gift capable of creating at the unattainable heights of poetic inspiration?

God forbid such a person be born in a time of turmoil and not meet a kindred spirit, a devoted heart... Fortunately, fate endowed Sholokhov with great joy for the rest of his life. In the village of Bukanovskaya, where his life almost ended, he met Masha Gromoslavskaya in 1922, and that was the end of his bachelorhood.

* * *

The literary and social reality of the first post-revolutionary years is a complex and contradictory process. Major events in world history are reflected in the multi-layered structure of social life. Under the influence of the socialist revolution, fundamental changes took place throughout the world, and, naturally, in the sphere of culture. History develops according to its own laws. It was possible to defend the new system or fight against it, curse, slander, or try to take a contemplative, neutral position, but no one could pretend that nothing had happened. The events of 1917 exposed all ends and beginnings, pitted the old and the new, progressive and reactionary, and confronted society (including artists and writers) with an inevitable choice: “for” or “against.” There was a deep split in the literary and artistic community: yesterday's friends found themselves on opposite sides of the barricades.

Young literature was noticeably gaining height. True, during this period she had not yet gotten rid of the one-sided view: in the revolution, writers saw only heroism, in its bloody font - courage, in cruelty - a manifestation of proletarian humanism. Often the individual, with his suffering, pain and despair, remained outside the field of their interest, and the misfortunes of the people were presented under the sign of the triumph of class interests. Fyodor Gladkov’s story “The Fire Horse” (1922) is one example of such literature. Destruction and death are the subject of her romantic pathos. Bolshevik Nikifor Gmyra, chairman of the revolutionary committee, sees the goal of the revolution this way: “... We are not going to death along this path, but to life... To life through death... Through suffering and torment - to human joy... Good!.. It’s good to bear the cross of struggle... the torment of the revolution ... to power over the whole earth... Our power... the power of labor! In fire is the power of the earth... in fire-breathing blood... And our great rebellion is in fire and blood...” He does just that. Like the commissioner of the armored train, sailor Globa: “...Get to the point, earth-born! We will follow the paths laid out by a power higher than us... through blood... through death... through tragedy... To poison every cell of the brain with bloody dirt. To suffer, to shake the earth... and to die..."

And there were many such works. The point, however, is not the quantity, but the trend, which was growing alarmingly stronger. Undoubtedly, it was a difficult time, engulfed in the flames of revolution on all sides. It was not easy for the writer to understand the tangle of devilishly complicated events. The most talented emerged from the crucible of the revolution pure and honest, but they lost something from their warmth, from a deep look at reality. And it would be wrong to judge too harshly their sincere delusions and slow perception of new beginnings in life.

Gradually, a change in the artistic method of literature was outlined. The first significant changes occur after “The Forty-First” by Boris Lavrenev, the novel by Alexander Serafimovich “The Iron Stream” and the stories of Mikhail Sholokhov (“Alien Blood”, “Azure Steppe”). They not only reflect the complex contradictions of their time, but also seem to break the vicious circle of everyone’s personal guilt for the violence and tyranny reigning around them and consider a person in a broad sense: in connections with society, in dreams of peaceful work, in intimate settings, sorrows, etc. exists in those forms of being that form consciousness and determine the actions of the individual. They are imbued with life affirmation and full of intense quests. Man, they show, is fed up with all this protracted bloody game into “revolutionary romance”, and he reached out to the dream and the land, to the machine, to the book.

Moscow helped Sholokhov finally believe in his own strength, in his own path in literature, in his talent. Thanks to the capital for science! In his service record, Sholokhov wrote: “From 10.1922 to 3.1923 - Moscow, artel of masons; from August 1923 to May 1924 - accountant of the Moscow Housing Administration No. 803...” In May 1924, having celebrated his birthday in the capital, he returned with Masha to the Don, to the village of Veshenskaya. At first they live with their parents in Bukanovskaya and Karginskaya.

So the desire inherited from my father to constantly change professions ended. Mikhail Sholokhov chooses literature.

Nature generously endowed him with poetic talent; moreover, he early realized how complex and difficult people’s lives were, and he wanted to make their fate easier with his creativity. Upon his arrival on the Don in 1924, he no longer thought about anything else. A strict working schedule was established: he wrote until late at night, woke up early like a peasant - along with the sun. On days of fishing or hunting trips - earlier. At seven in the morning - breakfast, at thirteen - lunch, at seventeen - tea and at nineteen - dinner. If I sat at my desk until four or five o’clock in the morning, I was still on my feet by seven and sitting down to breakfast. (After shell shock during the war, the regime changed.) In short term he is writing a book of stories, hatching a plan for a great novel.

In 1924–1925 (before the start of work on “The Quiet Don”), Sholokhov would write twenty-one (out of a total of 25) stories and novels (“The Little Road”).

The stories are published in the newspaper “Young Leninist”, the almanac “Molodost”, in the magazines “Ogonyok”, “Prozhektor”, “Peasant Magazine”, “Smena”, “Komsomoliya”, “Peasant Youth Magazine”. Let us add that the stories are also published in separate publications in the State Publishing House, “New Moscow”, “Moscow Association of Writers”, “Land and Factory”, “Young Guard”, “Don” (Stalingrad), in the “Labor Laborer’s Library” (supplement to the newspaper “ Laborer"), etc. In 1926, two collections were published - “ Don stories" and "Azure Steppe". It is interesting that of the twenty stories included in these collections, fourteen were published in 1925 and only six at the beginning of 1926. “The Foal”, “About Kolchak, Nettles and Others” were not included in the collections “Don Stories” and “Azure Steppe”. “Wind”, “Soft-Bodied”, “One Language” were published only in magazines, and the story “Resentment”, written in 1925-1926, was first published in 1962. After the publication in 1931 of the book “Azure Steppe. Don stories. 1923–1925” Sholokhov’s early works were not republished. And only twenty-five years later they were included in the first volume of the first collected works.

Sholokhov's first stories seem to belong to two spheres at once, to two principles - imaginary, fictitious and real. Sometimes it seems that the young author is lingering on the borderland. Memory calls to the cradle of harsh reality with its cruel laws, and anticipation - to human essence: kindness, sympathy, sincerity. Isn’t that why in the entire appearance of the heroes of the stories one can feel an internal contradiction, which at that time seemed even absurd, a kind of understatement. The writer's pen outlined the main thing, avoiding the secondary - details and details. Therefore, much seems to have been put together hastily and fragilely.

The human simplicity of the heroes captivates with its freshness and vitality. The pen glides easily and quickly. Hence - such simple, but such convincing images, and some seem to be sculpted with pagan courage. One would like to call them a piece of pristine nature, or rather, its test model.

It was as if the principle of art had been realized for the first time. For the first time, that says it all and justifies everything. That is why in some images of stories it is not always possible to find inner depth, refinement and completeness. The main thing is to express the essence, while the essence, the born thought and memory are important.

But here’s what’s significant: these stories declare a new view - the main thing in life: humanity, kindness, and not class cruelty and hatred. At that time, this was a clear retreat, a departure from the emerging literary tradition. In Sholokhov’s stories (especially those of 1925–1926) one can feel the breath of healthy life; from their pages a real person rises and declares his right to create, do good, feel and love.

Of course, the author of the stories could not (and did not want to!) avoid showing a fierce confrontation between two forces, depicting a revolution that is destroying and a revolution that is defending itself, and people in this terrible chaos, where it was no longer possible to determine who was right and who was wrong. However, the poeticization of the cruelest and unprecedented struggle for life and death, which - alas! - respectable, let's say, writers paid tribute. It is characteristic that Sholokhov's characters base their actions on specific circumstances, and not on an abstract idea, even if these actions are directed against human life. Bodyagin sentences his father to death for sabotage and goes to his death, saving the little boy (“Food Commissar”); Shibalok executes his front-line girlfriend, who is responsible for the death of the detachment, and saves the child; the farmhand Alyoshka, merciless to the bandits, lay down with his stomach on a grenade, when a woman with a child came out of the besieged house where the enemies were holed up... People are exhausted by troubles and bitter (blood seems to be dripping from the pages of stories), but there, in the depths of their hearts, it burns with an azure color tenderness and faith does not fade.

Undoubtedly, such a deep and fearless outlook on life is largely due to the personal fate of the narrator himself.

We should not forget that the beginning of Sholokhov’s work coincided with the transition period, with the era of the departure from the historical arena of one state system and the establishment of another, which had an undeniable impact on the entire further course of world development. The transition period in Russia was exceptionally rich in threatening and unpredictable events and provided a wealth of material for reflection and artistic analysis. Sholokhov was one of the few who understood and felt with the artist’s heart the full depth of the tragedy of Russia. Where is the exit? There was no definite answer, and there couldn’t be one. The writer pinned his hopes primarily on the instinct of self-preservation of the people, on the creative principle as the main sign of the health of the nation. This is the pathos of his new work. The story “Alien Blood” (1926) is not inferior to the famous “The Fate of Man” (1956) either in the expression of unprecedented emotional tension, or in the high impulses of the spirit and the preservation of an epic attitude towards the surrounding world, but in the strength of internal energy and the freshness of perception of nature, which breathed bitter the smell of wormwood seems to surpass it. But such is the fate of a talented piece (“Alien Blood”), overshadowed by a work of genius (“Quiet Don”). Like any masterpiece, “Alien Blood” contains a certain secret, a high tension of feelings and thoughts that cannot be directly interpreted or commented on. Even having penetrated the holy of holies of the artist’s creative laboratory, a serious researcher stops shocked and puzzled: the artist himself turns out to be powerless to explain many of his creative secrets... In the story there is a struggle between life and death, light and darkness, and the bright human principle, like a spring flood, sweeps away ideological dogmas and rigid class attitudes in its path. But how dearly a person has to pay for everything in this world!

Critics initially assessed Sholokhov's stories positively. In general, the first collection, “Don Stories” (January 1926), as well as the second, “Azure Steppe” (late 1926), were received favorably.

But by the end of the 1920s, the attitude of literary criticism towards the young writer was changing dramatically: the tone and nature of reviews of his works were becoming more and more picky and harsh. The themes of the stories, the creative method, and (which was by no means safe at that time) the ideological position of the author came under targeted fire. Sholokhov was accused of “naturalism,” “schematicism,” “biologism,” and of deviating from proletarian literature, and moreover, he was declared a “vacillating middle peasant” and a “petty-bourgeois humanist.”

Undoubtedly, the nature of these attacks lies not only in the widespread instinctive rejection of a new bright talent, but also in the Russianness of the writer that irritates internationally-minded intellectuals. National and folk were his original features, the essence of his talent.

Sholokhov, perhaps, came closest to recreating the life of the people, for he not only had the intuition of a brilliant artist, but also came from the midst of the people and throughout his life did not break with the language, thinking, feelings and worldview of his native environment. In addition, he is a representative and exponent of agricultural culture - that culture that underlies everything great that has been created by mankind in the field of art and fine literature.

The writer spoke on behalf of the people, through their mouths. Hence the powerful power of words and the aesthetic multidimensionality of the images of his best works. Only by such signs can one confidently judge the writer’s belonging to the culture of a particular people. Only this gives him the right to the title of national artist.

* * *

It would be a stretch to consider Sholokhov’s work as established once and for all and devoid of development and change. The artist was alien to rapid transitions, sudden leaps and recognition of the duality of artistic truth. Historicism of thinking is inherent in him. Possessing a completely new artistic worldview, a new understanding of the role of literature in the life of society, Sholokhov reflected the transitional stages of society and the historical fate of Russia.

While continuing to work on the novel “They Fought for the Motherland” and reflecting on the second book of “Virgin Soil Upturned,” the artist creates the story “The Fate of a Man” (1956), which is destined to occupy a special place in his creative biography. Here we are faced with a new shade of social emphasis and coverage military theme, which opened up a broad perspective for literature to comprehend reality, namely: what problems faced the country in days of peace and what does victory promise to the people, which cost them unheard-of troubles, great suffering and innumerable sacrifices?

It is noteworthy that the story almost completely lacks pathos and sublime heroism, so characteristic of literature about war. Sholokhov excludes common external plausibility in the name of the high truth, to which he was always faithful. Therefore, we are talking about a mature view of the state of the world, which needs sympathy and mercy. It is no coincidence that the artist’s entire attention is focused on revealing the image of a wonderful man who overcame a “military hurricane of unprecedented force,” but found himself doomed to restlessness and loneliness.

The very fact that the artist turned to the small genre in which he shone thirty years ago is worthy of attention. In addition, he deliberately (“to test himself”) used the most difficult form - a first-person story.

The short story is a difficult genre, the craft of storytelling is very difficult, and it requires careful, thoughtful and slow reading from the reader. As rightly noted, the story of a true master is not fun at leisure, but an “emergency incident” in the life of the reader” (B. Larin). There are many famous novelists in the history of world literature, but there are hardly a dozen major masters story.

Sholokhov's last story, while having a number of features inherent in the small genre, is distinguished by its undoubted innovative qualities. The classical rigor of the composition, harsh laconicism and tension of the plot are combined here with epicness and tragedy, previously unusual in the small form. The impression is enhanced by the author’s emotion and the integrity of the protagonist’s image. The story, it seems, was not composed, but seemed to grow out of a cruel reality, in the epicenter of which Andrei Sokolov found himself.

On the thirty-first of December 1956 and the first of January 1957, “The Fate of Man” was published on the pages of Pravda.

The beginning of the story is in an epic tone. The author dispassionately and calmly describes the muddy roads, the fatigue of the horses, the decrepit little boat on which the travelers cross the river, and finally, a spring day. “The first post-war spring on the Upper Don was unusually friendly and assertive. At the end of March, warm winds blew from the Azov region, and within two days the sands of the left bank of the Don were completely exposed, snow-filled ravines and gullies in the steppe swelled up, breaking the ice, steppe rivers leaped madly, and the roads became almost completely impassable.” And the crystal ice glistening in the sun, and the lilac haze of the fog, and the eternally young, barely perceptible aroma of the earth recently freed from under the snow - everything seemed to be conducive to serene contemplation and peace: “It was noon. The sun was shining hotly, like in May. I hoped that the cigarettes (laid out on a fallen fence. - N.F.) will dry out soon. The sun was shining so hotly that I already regretted wearing military cotton trousers and a quilted jacket for the journey. It was the first truly warm day after winter. It was good to sit on the fence like this, alone, completely submitting to silence and loneliness, and, having taken off the old soldier’s earflaps from his head, drying his hair, wet after heavy rowing, in the breeze, mindlessly watching the white busty clouds floating in the faded blue.” A man and a boy about five or six years old appeared from behind the outer courtyards of the farm. They wearily wandered towards the crossing, but, having caught up with the author, they headed towards him.

The calm tone of the story ends abruptly as soon as Andrei Sokolov approaches and starts talking about his life. The confession of this man is full of sorrow.

“Sometimes you don’t sleep at night, you look into the darkness with empty eyes and think: “Why have you, life, maimed me like that? Why did you distort it like that? “I don’t have an answer, either in the dark or in the clear sun... No, and I can’t wait!” And further: “I had a family, my own home, all this had been put together for years, and everything collapsed in a single moment, I was left alone. I think: “Didn’t I just dream about my awkward life?”

They beat you because you are Russian, because you still look at the world... They beat you because you look the wrong way, step the wrong way, turn the wrong way...<…>And they fed us everywhere the same way: one and a half hundred grams of ersatz bread, half and half with sawdust, and liquid rutabaga gruel. Boiling water – where they gave it and where they didn’t.<…>And give me work, and don’t say a word, but such work that a draft horse wouldn’t even fit.”

After escaping from captivity, a new misfortune came - news from Voronezh about the death of his wife and daughters from a German bomb, and soon the death of his son: “Exactly on the ninth of May, in the morning of Victory Day, a German sniper killed my Anatoly...<…>I buried my last joy and hope in a foreign, German land, my son’s battery struck, seeing off his commander on a long journey, and it was as if something broke in me...”

Here he is, Andrei Sokolov, after everything he has experienced: “He put big dark hands, hunched over. I looked at him from the side, and I felt something uneasy... Have you ever seen eyes, as if sprinkled with ashes, filled with such an inescapable mortal melancholy that it is difficult to look into them? These were the eyes of my random interlocutor.” Elsewhere: “...but I didn’t see a single tear in his seemingly dead, extinct eyes. He sat with his head bowed down, only his large, limply lowered hands trembled slightly, his chin trembled, his hard lips trembled. as if the eyes had gone out. Throughout the entire story, Sokolov’s voice will be heard, muffled and sad.

To get a clearer idea of ​​Sokolov’s image, we should touch on one more element of his biography. “And here’s another problem: almost every night I see my dear dead in my dreams. And it’s increasingly like I’m behind the barbed wire, and they’re free, on the other side... I talk about everything with Irina and the kids, but as soon as I want to push the wire with my hands, they walk away from me, as if they’re melting before my eyes...”

Evgenia Grigorievna Levitskaya

member of the CPSU since 1903

The first post-war spring on the Upper Don was unusually friendly and assertive. At the end of March, warm winds blew from the Azov region, and within two days the sands of the left bank of the Don were completely exposed, snow-filled ravines and gullies in the steppe swelled up, breaking the ice, steppe rivers leaped madly, and the roads became almost completely impassable.

During this bad time of no roads, I had to go to the village of Bukanovskaya. And the distance is small - only about sixty kilometers - but overcoming them was not so easy. My friend and I left before sunrise. A pair of well-fed horses, pulling the lines to a string, could barely drag the heavy chaise. The wheels sank right up to the hub into the damp sand mixed with snow and ice, and an hour later, white fluffy flakes of soap appeared on the horses’ sides and hips, under the thin harness straps, and in the morning fresh air there was a pungent and intoxicating smell of horse sweat and the warm tar of generously oiled horse harness.

Where it was especially difficult for the horses, we got off the chaise and walked. The soaked snow squelched under the boots, it was hard to walk, but along the sides of the road there was still crystal ice glistening in the sun, and it was even more difficult to get through there. Only about six hours later we covered a distance of thirty kilometers and arrived at the crossing over the Elanka River.

A small river, drying up in places in summer, opposite the Mokhovsky farm in a swampy floodplain overgrown with alders, overflowed for a whole kilometer. It was necessary to cross on a fragile punt that could carry no more than three people. We released the horses. On the other side, in the collective farm barn, an old, well-worn “Jeep” was waiting for us, left there in the winter. Together with the driver, we boarded the dilapidated boat, not without fear. The comrade remained on the shore with his things. They had barely set sail when water began to gush out in fountains from the rotten bottom in different places. Using improvised means, they caulked the unreliable vessel and scooped water out of it until they reached it. An hour later we were on the other side of Elanka. The driver drove the car from the farm, approached the boat and said, taking the oar:

If this damned trough doesn’t fall apart on the water, we’ll arrive in two hours, don’t wait earlier.

The farm was located far to the side, and near the pier there was such silence as only happens in deserted places in the dead of autumn and at the very beginning of spring. The water smelled of dampness, the tart bitterness of rotting alder, and from the distant Khoper steppes, drowned in a lilac haze of fog, a light breeze carried the eternally youthful, barely perceptible aroma of land recently freed from under the snow.

Not far away, on the coastal sand, lay a fallen fence. I sat down on it, wanted to light a cigarette, but, putting my hand into the right pocket of the cotton quilt, to my great chagrin, I discovered that the pack of Belomor was completely soaked. During the crossing, a wave lashed over the side of a low-slung boat and doused me waist-deep in muddy water. Then I had no time to think about cigarettes, I had to abandon the oar and quickly bail out the water so that the boat would not sink, and now, bitterly annoyed at my mistake, I carefully took the soggy pack out of my pocket, squatted down and began to lay it out one by one on the fence damp, browned cigarettes.

It was noon. The sun was shining hotly, like in May. I hoped that the cigarettes would dry out soon. The sun was shining so hotly that I already regretted wearing military cotton trousers and a quilted jacket for the journey. It was the first truly warm day after winter. It was good to sit on the fence like this, alone, completely submitting to silence and loneliness, and, taking off the old soldier’s earflaps from his head, drying his hair, wet after heavy rowing, in the breeze, mindlessly watching the white busty clouds floating in the faded blue.

Soon I saw a man come out onto the road from behind the outer courtyards of the farm. He led by the hand little boy, judging by his height, he is no more than five or six years old. They walked wearily towards the crossing, but when they caught up with the car, they turned towards me. A tall, stooped man, coming close, said in a muffled basso:

Hello, brother!

Hello. - I shook the large, callous hand extended to me.

The man leaned towards the boy and said:

Say hello to your uncle, son. Apparently, he is the same driver as your dad. Only you and I drove a truck, and he drives this little car.

Looking straight into my eyes with eyes as bright as the sky, smiling slightly, the boy boldly extended his pink, cold little hand to me. I shook her lightly and asked:

Why is it, old man, that your hand is so cold? It's warm outside, but you're freezing?

With touching childish trust, the baby pressed himself against my knees and raised his whitish eyebrows in surprise.

What kind of old man am I, uncle? I’m not a boy at all, and I don’t freeze at all, but my hands are cold - because I was rolling snowballs.

Taking the skinny duffel bag off his back and wearily sitting down next to me, my father said:

I'm in trouble with this passenger! It was through him that I got involved. If you take a wide step, he will already break into a trot, so please adapt to such an infantryman. Where I need to step once, I step three times, and we walk with him separately, like a horse and a turtle. But here he needs an eye and an eye. You turn away a little, and he’s already wandering across the puddle or breaking off an ice cream and sucking it instead of candy. No, it’s not a man’s business to travel with such passengers, and at a leisurely pace at that. “He was silent for a while, then asked: “What are you, brother, waiting for your superiors?”

It was inconvenient for me to dissuade him that I was not a driver, and I answered:

We have to wait.

Will they come from the other side?

Don't know if the boat will arrive soon?

In two hours.

In order. Well, while we rest, I have nowhere to rush. And I walk past, I look: my brother, the driver, is sunbathing. Let me, I think, I’ll come in and have a smoke together. One is sick of smoking and dying. And you live richly and smoke cigarettes. Damaged them, then? Well, brother, soaked tobacco, like a treated horse, is no good. Let's smoke my strong drink instead.

He took out a worn raspberry silk pouch rolled into a tube from the pocket of his protective summer pants, unfolded it, and I managed to read the inscription embroidered on the corner: “To a dear fighter from a 6th grade student at Lebedyansk Secondary School.”

We lit a strong cigarette and were silent for a long time. I wanted to ask where he was going with the child, what need was driving him into such muddiness, but he beat me to it with a question:

What, you spent the entire war behind the wheel?

Almost all of it.

At the front?

Well, there I had to, brother, take a sip of bitterness up the nostrils and up.

He placed his large dark hands on his knees and hunched over. I looked at him from the side, and I felt something uneasy... Have you ever seen eyes, as if sprinkled with ashes, filled with such an inescapable mortal melancholy that it is difficult to look into them? These were the eyes of my random interlocutor.

Having broken out a dry, twisted twig from the fence, he silently moved it along the sand for a minute, drawing some intricate figures, and then spoke:

Sometimes you don’t sleep at night, you look into the darkness with empty eyes and think: “Why, life, did you cripple me like that? Why did you distort it like that?” I don’t have an answer, either in the dark or in the clear sun... No, and I can’t wait! - And suddenly he came to his senses: gently pushing his little son, he said: - Go, dear, play near the water, there is always some kind of prey for the children near the big water. Just be careful not to get your feet wet!

While we were still smoking in silence, I, furtively examining my father and son, noted with surprise one circumstance that was strange in my opinion. The boy was dressed simply, but well: in the way he was wearing a long-brimmed jacket lined with a light, well-worn jacket, and in the fact that the tiny boots were sewn to be worn on wool sock, and a very skillful seam on the once torn sleeve of the jacket - everything betrayed feminine care, skillful motherly hands. But the father looked different: the padded jacket, burnt in several places, was carelessly and roughly darned, the patch on his worn-out protective trousers was not sewn on properly, but rather sewn on with wide, masculine stitches; he was wearing almost new soldier’s boots, but his thick woolen socks were moth-eaten, they had not been touched by a woman’s hand... Even then I thought: “Either he is a widower, or he lives at odds with his wife.”

But then he, following his little son with his eyes, coughed dully, spoke again, and I became all ears.

At first my life was ordinary. I myself am a native of the Voronezh province, born in 1900. During the civil war he was in the Red Army, in the Kikvidze division. In the hungry year of twenty-two, he went to Kuban to fight the kulaks, and that’s why he survived. And the father, mother and sister died of hunger at home. One left. Rodney - even if you roll a ball - nowhere, no one, not a single soul. Well, a year later he returned from Kuban, sold his little house, and went to Voronezh. At first he worked in a carpentry artel, then he went to a factory and learned to be a mechanic. Soon he got married. The wife was brought up in an orphanage. Orphan. I got a good girl! Quiet, cheerful, obsequious and smart, no match for me. Since childhood, she learned how much a pound is worth, maybe this affected her character. Looking from the outside, she wasn’t all that distinguished, but I wasn’t looking at her from the side, but point-blank. And for me there was no one more beautiful and more desirable than her, there was not in the world and there never will be!

You come home from work tired, and sometimes angry as hell. No, she will not be rude to you in response to a rude word. Affectionate, quiet, doesn’t know where to sit you, struggles to prepare a sweet piece for you even with little income. You look at her and move away with your heart, and after a little you hug her and say: “Sorry, dear Irinka, I was rude to you. You see, my work isn’t going well these days.” And again we have peace, and I have peace of mind. Do you know, brother, that

Once in a while after payday I had to have a drink with my friends. Sometimes it happened that you went home and made such pretzels with your feet that, from the outside, it was probably scary to look at. The street is too small for you, and even the coven, not to mention the alleys. I was a healthy guy then and strong as the devil, I could drink a lot, and I always got home on my own two feet. But it also happened sometimes that the last stage was at first speed, that is, on all fours, but he still got there. And again, no reproach, no shouting, no scandal. My Irinka only chuckles, and then carefully so that I don’t get offended when I’m drunk. He takes me off and whispers: “Lie down against the wall, Andryusha, otherwise you’ll fall out of bed sleepy.” Well, I’ll fall like a sack of oats, and everything will float before my eyes. I only hear in my sleep that she is quietly stroking my head with her hand and whispering something affectionate, she is sorry, that means...

In the morning, she will get me up on my feet about two hours before work so that I can warm up. He knows that I won’t eat anything when I’m hungover, well, he’ll get a pickled cucumber or something else light and pour a cut glass of vodka. “Have a hangover, Andryusha, but no more, my dear.” But is it possible not to justify such trust? I’ll drink it, thank her without words, with just my eyes, kiss her and go to work like a sweetheart. But if she had said a word against me when I was drunk, shouted or cursed, and I, like God, would have gotten drunk on the second day. This is what happens in other families where the wife is a fool; I've seen enough of such sluts, I know.

Soon our children left. First the little son was born, a year later

In 1929 I was attracted by cars. I studied the car business and sat behind the wheel of a truck. Then I got involved and no longer wanted to return to the plant. I thought it was more fun behind the wheel. He lived like that for ten years and didn’t notice how they passed. They passed as if in a dream. Why ten years! Ask any elderly person, did he notice how he lived his life? He didn't notice a damn thing! The past is like that distant steppe in the haze. In the morning I walked along it, everything was clear all around, but I walked twenty kilometers, and now the steppe was covered in haze, and from here you can no longer distinguish the forest from the weeds, the arable land from the grass cutter...

For these ten years I worked day and night. I made good money, and we lived no worse than other people. And the children were happy: all three studied with excellent marks, and the eldest, Anatoly, turned out to be so capable of mathematics that they even wrote about him in the central newspaper. Where he got such a huge talent for this science, I myself, brother, don’t know. But it was very flattering to me, and I was proud of him, so passionately proud!

Over ten years we saved up a little money and before the war we built ourselves a little house with two rooms, a storage room and a corridor. Irina bought two goats. What more do you need? The children eat porridge with milk, have a roof over their heads, are dressed, have shoes, so everything is in order. I just lined up awkwardly. They gave me a plot of six acres not far from the aircraft factory. If my shack were in a different place, maybe life would have turned out differently...

And here it is, war. On the second day there is a summons from the military registration and enlistment office, and on the third - welcome to the train. All four of my friends saw me off: Irina, Anatoly and my daughters Nastenka and Olyushka. All the guys behaved well. Well, the daughters, not without that, had sparkling tears. Anatoly just shrugged his shoulders as if from the cold, by that time he was already seventeen years old, and Irina is mine... I have never seen her like this in all the seventeen years of our life together. At night, the shirt on my shoulder and chest did not dry out from her tears, and in the morning the same story... We came to the station, but I couldn’t look at her out of pity: my lips were swollen from tears, my hair had come out from under my scarf, and my eyes were cloudy , meaningless, like those of a person touched by the mind. The commanders announced the landing, and she fell on my chest, clasped her hands around my neck and was trembling all over, like a felled tree... And the kids tried to persuade her, and so did I - nothing helps! Other women are talking to their husbands and sons, but mine clung to me like a leaf to a branch, and only trembles all over, but cannot utter a word. I tell her: “Pull yourself together, my dear Irinka! Tell me at least a word goodbye." She says and sobs behind every word: “My dear... Andryusha... we won’t see you... you and I... anymore... in this... world”...

Here my heart breaks to pieces out of pity for her, and here she is with these words. I should have understood that it’s not easy for me to part with them either; I wasn’t going to my mother-in-law’s for pancakes. Evil got me here! I forcibly separated her hands and lightly pushed her on the shoulders. It seemed like I pushed lightly, but my strength was stupid; she backed away, took three steps back and again walked towards me in small steps, holding out her hands, and I shouted to her: “Is this really how they say goodbye? Why are you burying me alive ahead of time?!” Well, I hugged her again, I see that she’s not herself...

He abruptly stopped his story mid-sentence, and in the ensuing silence I heard something bubbling and gurgling in his throat. Someone else's excitement was transmitted to me. I looked sideways at the narrator, but did not see a single tear in his seemingly dead, extinct eyes. He sat with his head bowed dejectedly, only his large, limply lowered hands trembled slightly, his chin trembled, his hard lips trembled...

No, friend, don’t remember! “I said quietly, but he probably didn’t hear my words and, by some huge effort of will, overcoming his excitement, he suddenly said in a hoarse, strangely changed voice:

Until my death, until my last hour, I will die, and I will not forgive myself for pushing her away then!..

He fell silent again for a long time. I tried to roll a cigarette, but the newsprint was torn and the tobacco fell onto my lap. Finally, he somehow made a twist, took several greedy puffs and, coughing, continued:

I broke away from Irina, took her face in my hands, kissed her, and her lips were like ice. I said goodbye to the kids, ran to the carriage, and already on the move jumped onto the step. The train took off quietly; I should pass by my own people. I look, my orphaned children are huddled together, waving their hands at me, trying to smile, but it doesn’t come out. And Irina pressed her hands to her chest; her lips are white as chalk, she whispers something with them, looks at me, doesn’t blink, but she leans all forward, as if she wants to step against strong wind... This is how she remained in my memory for the rest of my life: hands pressed to my chest, white lips and wide-open eyes, full of tears... For the most part, this is how I always see her in my dreams... Why did I push her away then? I still remember that my heart feels like it’s being cut with a dull knife...

We were formed near Bila Tserkva, in Ukraine. They gave me a ZIS-5. I rode it to the front. Well, you have nothing to tell about the war, you saw it yourself and you know how it was at first. I often received letters from my friends, but rarely sent lionfish myself. It happened that you would write that everything was fine, we were fighting little by little, and although we were retreating now, we would soon gather our strength and then let the Fritz have a light. What else could you write? It was a sickening time; there was no time for writing. And I must admit, I myself was not a fan of playing on plaintive strings and could not stand these slobbering ones that every day, to the point and not to the point, they wrote to their wives and sweethearts, smearing their snot on the paper. It’s hard, they say, it’s hard for him, he’ll be killed at any moment. And here he is, a bitch in his pants, complaining, looking for sympathy, slobbering, but he doesn’t want to understand that these unfortunate women and children had it no worse than ours in the rear. The whole state relied on them! What kind of shoulders did our women and children have to have so as not to bend under such a weight? But they didn’t bend, they stood! And such a whip, a wet little soul, will write a pitiful letter - and a working woman will be like a ripple at her feet. After this letter, she is a wretched woman, she will give up, and work is not her job. No! That's why you're a man, that's why you're a soldier, to endure everything, to endure everything, if need calls for it. And if you have more of a woman’s streak in you than a man’s, then put on a gathered skirt to cover your skinny butt more fully, so that at least from behind you look like a woman, and go weed beets or milk cows, but at the front you are not needed like that, there There's a lot of stink without you!

But I didn’t even have to fight for a year... I was wounded twice during this time, but both times only lightly: once in the flesh of the arm, the other in the leg; the first time - with a bullet from an airplane, the second - with a shell fragment. The German made holes in my car both from the top and from the sides, but, brother, I was lucky at first. I was lucky, and I got to the very end... I was captured near Lozovenki in May of '42 in such an awkward situation: the Germans were advancing strongly at that time, and one of our one hundred and twenty-two-millimeter howitzer batteries turned out to be almost without shells; They loaded my car to the brim with shells, and while loading I myself worked so hard that my tunic stuck to my shoulder blades. We had to hurry because the battle was approaching us: on the left someone’s tanks were thundering, on the right there was shooting, there was shooting ahead, and it was already starting to smell like something was fried...

The commander of our company asks: “Will you get through, Sokolov?” And there was nothing to ask here. My comrades may be dying there, but I’ll be sick here? “What a conversation! - I answer him. “I have to get through and that’s it!” “Well,” he says, “blow!” Push all the hardware!”

I blew it. I’ve never driven like this in my life! I knew that I wasn’t carrying potatoes, that with this load, caution was needed when driving, but how could there be any caution when there were empty-handed guys fighting, when the entire road was being shot through by artillery fire. I ran about six kilometers, soon I was about to turn onto a dirt road to get to the ravine where the battery stood, and then I looked - holy mother - our infantry was pouring across the open field to the right and left of the grader, and mines were already exploding in their formations. What should I do? Shouldn't you turn back? I'll push with all my might! And there was only a kilometer left to the battery, I had already turned onto a dirt road, but I didn’t have to get to my people, bro... Apparently, he placed a heavy one near the car for me from a long-range one. I didn’t hear a burst or anything, it was just as if something had burst in my head, and I don’t remember anything else. I don’t understand how I stayed alive then, and I can’t figure out how long I lay about eight meters from the ditch. I woke up, but I couldn’t get to my feet: my head was twitching, I was shaking all over, as if I had a fever, there was darkness in my eyes, something was creaking and crunching in my left shoulder, and the pain in my whole body was the same as, say, for two days in a row. They hit me with whatever they got. For a long time I crawled on the ground on my stomach, but somehow I stood up. However, again, I don’t understand anything, where I am and what happened to me. My memory has completely disappeared. And I'm afraid to go back to bed. I'm afraid that I'll lie down and never get up again, I'll die. I stand and sway from side to side, like a poplar in a storm.

When I came to my senses, I came to my senses and looked around properly - it was as if someone had squeezed my heart with pliers: there were shells lying around, the ones I was carrying, nearby my car, all beaten to pieces, was lying upside down, and battle, battle already coming behind me... How's that?

It’s no secret, it was then that my legs gave way on their own, and I fell as if I had been cut off, because I realized that I was already surrounded, or rather, captured by the Nazis. This is how it happens in war...

Oh, brother, it’s not an easy thing to understand that you are not in captivity of your own free will. For those who have not experienced this on their own skin, it will not immediately penetrate into their souls so that they can understand in a human way that

Well, so, I’m lying there and I hear: the tanks are thundering. Four German medium tanks at full throttle passed me to where I had left with the shells... What was it like to experience it? Then the tractors with guns pulled up, the field kitchen passed by, then the infantry came, not too many, so, no more than one beaten company. I’ll look, I’ll look at them out of the corner of my eye and again I’ll press my cheek to the ground, I’ll close my eyes: I’m sick of looking at them, and my heart is sick...

I thought that everyone had passed, I raised my head, and there were six of them machine gunners - there they were, walking about a hundred meters away from me. I look, they turn off the road and come straight towards me. They walk in silence. “Here,” I think, “my death is approaching.” I sat down, reluctant to lie down and die, then stood up. One of them, a few steps short, jerked his shoulder and took off his machine gun. And this is how funny a person is: I had no panic, no timidity of heart at that moment. I just look at him and think: “Now he’ll fire a short burst at me, but where will he hit? In the head or across the chest? As if it’s not a damn thing to me, what place will he sew in my body.

A young guy, so good-looking, dark-haired, with thin, thread-like lips and squinted eyes. “This one will kill and not think twice,” I think to myself. That’s how it is: he raised his machine gun - I looked him straight in the eye, remained silent - and the other one, a corporal or something, older than him in age, one might say, elderly, shouted something, pushed it aside, came up to me, babbling in its own way, it bends my right arm at the elbow, which means it feels the muscle. He tried it and said: “Oh-oh-oh!” - and points to the road, to the sunset. Stomp, you little working beast, to work for our Reich. The owner turned out to be a son of a bitch!

But the dark one took a closer look at my boots, and they looked good, and he gestured with his hand: “Take them off.” I sat down on the ground, took off my boots, and handed them to him. He literally snatched them out of my hands. I unwound the footcloths, handed them to him, and looked up at him. But he screamed, swore in his own way, and again grabbed the machine gun. The rest are laughing. With that, they departed peacefully. Only this dark-haired guy, by the time he reached the road, looked back at me three times, his eyes sparkling like a wolf cub, he was angry, but why? As if I took his boots off, and not he took them off me.

Well, brother, I had nowhere to go. I went out onto the road, cursed with a terrible, curly, Voronezh obscenity and walked west, into captivity!.. And then I was a useless walker, no more than a kilometer an hour. You want to step forward, but you are rocked from side to side, driven along the road like a drunk. I walked a little, and a column of our prisoners, from the same division in which I was, caught up with me. They are being chased by about ten German machine gunners. The one who walked in front of the column caught up with me and, without saying bad word, backhanded me over the head with the handle of the machine gun. If I had fallen, he would have pinned me to the ground with a burst of fire, but our men caught me in flight, pushed me into the middle and held me by the arms for half an hour. And when I came to my senses, one of them whispered: “God forbid you fall! Go with all your strength, otherwise they will kill you.” And I tried my best, but I went.

As soon as the sun set, the Germans strengthened the convoy, threw another twenty machine gunners onto the cargo truck, and drove us on an accelerated march. Our seriously wounded could not keep up with the rest, and they were shot right on the road. Two tried to escape, but they didn’t take into account that on a moonlit night you were in an open field as far as you could see, well, of course, they shot them too. At midnight we arrived at some half-burnt village. They forced us to spend the night in a church with a broken dome. There is not a scrap of straw on the stone floor, and we are all without overcoats, wearing only tunics and trousers, so there is nothing to lay down. Some of them weren’t even wearing tunics, just calico undershirts. Most of them were junior commanders. They wore their tunics so that they could not be distinguished from the rank and file. And the artillery servants were without tunics. As they worked near the guns, spread out, they were captured.

At night it rained so hard that we all got wet through. Here the dome was blown away by a heavy shell or bomb from an airplane, and here the roof was completely damaged by shrapnel; you couldn’t even find a dry place in the altar. So we loitered all night in this church, like sheep in a dark coil. In the middle of the night I hear someone touching my hand and asking: “Comrade, are you wounded?” I answer him: “What do you need, brother?” He says: “I’m a military doctor, maybe I can help you with something?” I complained to him that my left shoulder was creaking and swollen and hurt terribly. He firmly says: “Take off your tunic and undershirt.” I took all this off of me, and he began to probe my shoulder with his thin fingers, so much so that I didn’t see the light. I grind my teeth and tell him: “You are obviously a veterinarian, not a human doctor. Why are you pressing so hard on a sore spot, you heartless person?” And he probes everything and angrily answers: “It’s your job to keep quiet! Me too, he started talking. Hold on, it will hurt even more now.” Yes, as soon as my hand was jerked, red sparks began to fall from my eyes.

I came to my senses and asked: “What are you doing, you unfortunate fascist? My hand is smashed to pieces, and you jerked it like that.” I heard him laugh quietly and say: “I thought that you would hit me with your right, but it turns out you are a quiet guy. But your hand was not broken, but knocked out, so I put it back in its place. Well, how are you now, do you feel better?” And in fact, I feel within myself that the pain is going away somewhere. I thanked him sincerely, and he walked further in the darkness, quietly asking: “Are there any wounded?” This is what a real doctor means! He did his great work both in captivity and in the dark.

It was a restless night. They didn’t let us in until it was windy, the senior guard warned us about this even when they herded us into the church in pairs. And, as luck would have it, one of our pilgrims felt the urge to go out to relieve himself. He strengthened himself and strengthened himself, and then began to cry. “I can’t,” he says, “desecrate the holy temple! I am a believer, I am a Christian! What should I do, brothers?” And do you know what kind of people we are? Some laugh, others swear, others give him all sorts of funny advice. He amused us all, but this mess ended very badly: he started knocking on the door and asking to be let out. Well, he was interrogated: the fascist sent a long line through the door, its entire width, and killed this pilgrim, and three more people, and seriously wounded one; he died by morning.

We put the dead in one place, we all sat down, became quiet and thoughtful: the beginning was not very cheerful... And a little later we started talking in low voices, whispering: who was from where, what region, how they were captured; in the darkness, comrades from the same platoon or acquaintances from the same company became confused and began to slowly call out to each other. And I hear such a quiet conversation next to me. One says: “If tomorrow, before driving us further, they line us up and call out commissars, communists and Jews, then, platoon commander, don’t hide! Nothing will come of this matter. Do you think that if you took off your tunic, you can pass for a private? Will not work! I don't intend to answer for you. I'll be the first to point you out! I know that you are a communist and encouraged me to join the party, so be responsible for your affairs.” This is said by the person closest to me, who is sitting next to me, to the left, and on the other side of him, someone’s young voice answers: “I always suspected that you, Kryzhnev, are a bad person. Especially when you refused to join the party, citing your illiteracy. But I never thought that you could become a traitor. After all, you graduated from the seven-year school?” He lazily answers his platoon commander: “Well, I graduated, so what of this?” They were silent for a long time, then, based on his voice, the platoon commander quietly said: “Don’t give me away, Comrade Kryzhnev.” And he laughed quietly. “Comrades,” he says, “remained behind the front line, but I’m not your comrade, and don’t ask me, I’ll point you out anyway. Your own shirt is closer to your body.”

They fell silent, and I got chills from such subversiveness. “No,” I think, “I won’t let you, son of a bitch, betray your commander! You won’t leave this church, but they’ll pull you out by the legs like a bastard!” It’s just a little bit dawned - I see: next to me, a big-faced guy is lying on his back, with his hands behind his head, and sitting next to him in his undershirt, hugging his knees, is such a thin, snub-nosed guy, and very pale. “Well,” I think, “this guy won’t be able to cope with such a fat gelding. I’ll have to finish it.”

I touched him with my hand and asked in a whisper: “Are you a platoon leader?” He didn’t answer, he just nodded his head. “Does this one want to give you away?” - I point to the lying guy. He nodded his head back. “Well,” I say, “hold his legs so he doesn’t kick!” Come live!” - and I fell on this guy, and my fingers froze on his throat. He didn't even have time to shout. I held it under me for a few minutes and stood up. The traitor is ready, and his tongue is on his side!

Before that, I felt unwell after that, and I really wanted to wash my hands, as if I was not a person, but some kind of creeping reptile... For the first time in my life, I killed, and then my own... But what kind of one is he? He is worse than a stranger, a traitor. I stood up and said to the platoon commander: “Let’s get out of here, comrade, the church is great.”

As this Kryzhnev said, in the morning we were all lined up near the church, surrounded by machine gunners, and three SS officers began to select people who were harmful to them. They asked who the communists were, the commanders, the commissars, but there were none. There wasn’t even a bastard who could betray us, because almost half of us were communists, there were commanders, and, of course, there were commissars. Only four were taken out of more than two hundred people. One Jew and three Russian privates. The Russians got into trouble because all three were dark-haired and had curly hair. So they come up to this and ask: “Yude?” He says that he is Russian, but they don’t want to listen to him. “Come out” - that’s all.

You see, what a deal, brother, from the first day I planned to go to my people. But I definitely wanted to leave. Until Poznan, where we were placed in a real camp, I never had a suitable opportunity. And in the Poznan camp, such a case was found: at the end of May, they sent us to a forest near the camp to dig graves for our own dead prisoners of war, then many of our brothers were dying of dysentery; I’m digging Poznan clay, and I’m looking around and I noticed that two of our guards sat down to have a snack, and the third was dozing in the sun. I threw the shovel and quietly went behind the bush... And then I ran, heading straight for the sunrise...

Apparently, they didn’t realize it soon, my guards. But where I, so skinny, got the strength to walk almost forty kilometers in a day - I don’t know. But nothing came of my dream: on the fourth day, when I was already far from the damned camp, they caught me. The detection dogs followed my trail, and they found me in the uncut oats.

At dawn, I was afraid to walk through an open field, and the forest was at least three kilometers away, so I lay down in the oats for the day. I crushed the grains in my palms, chewed them a little and poured them into my pockets in reserve, and then I heard a dog barking, and a motorcycle was cracking... My heart sank, because the dogs were all closer voices served. I lay down flat and covered myself with my hands so that they wouldn’t gnaw my face. Well, they ran up and in one minute they took off all my rags. I was left in what my mother gave birth to. They rolled me around in the oats as they wanted, and in the end one male stood on my chest with his front paws and aimed for my throat, but didn’t touch me yet.

The Germans arrived on two motorcycles. At first they beat me freely, and then they set the dogs on me, and only my skin and meat fell off in shreds. Naked, covered in blood, they brought him to the camp. I spent a month in a punishment cell for escaping, but still alive... I remained alive!..

It’s hard for me, brother, to remember, and even harder to talk about what I experienced in captivity. As you remember the inhuman torment that you had to endure there in Germany, as you remember all the friends and comrades who died and were tortured there in the camps - your heart is no longer in your chest, but in your throat, and it becomes difficult to breathe...

They beat you because you are Russian, because you still look at the world, because you work for them, the bastards. They also beat you for looking the wrong way, stepping the wrong way, or turning the wrong way. They beat him simply, in order to someday kill him to death, so that he would choke on his last blood and die from the beatings. There probably weren’t enough stoves for all of us in Germany.

And they fed us everywhere, as it was, the same way: one hundred and fifty grams of ersatz bread, half and half with sawdust, and liquid rutabaga gruel. Boiling water - where they gave it and where they didn’t. What can I say, judge for yourself: before the war I weighed eighty-six kilograms, and by the fall I was no longer weighing more than fifty. Only the skin remained on the bones, and it was impossible for them to carry their own bones. And give me work, and don’t say a word, but such work that it’s not the time for a draft horse.

At the beginning of September, we, one hundred and forty-two Soviet prisoners of war, were transferred from a camp near the city of Küstrin to camp B-14, not far from Dresden. By that time there were about two thousand of us in this camp. Everyone worked in a stone quarry, manually chiseling, cutting, and crushing German stone. The norm is four cubic meters per day per soul, mind you, for such a soul, which was already barely hanging on by one thread in the body. That’s where it began: two months later, from the one hundred and forty-two people of our echelon, there were fifty-seven of us left. How's that, bro? Famously? Here you don’t have time to bury your own, and then rumors spread around the camp that the Germans have already taken Stalingrad and are moving on to Siberia. One grief after another, and they bend you so much that you can’t raise your eyes from the ground, as if you were asking to go there, to a foreign, German land. And the camp guards drink every day, sing songs, rejoice, rejoice.

And then one evening we returned to the barracks from work. It rained all day, it was enough to wring out our rags; We were all chilled like dogs in the cold wind, a tooth wouldn’t touch a tooth. But there is nowhere to dry off, to warm up - the same thing, and besides, they are hungry not only to death, but even worse. But in the evening we were not supposed to have food.

I took off my wet rags, threw them on the bunk and said: “They need four cubic meters of production, but for the grave of each of us, one cubic meter through the eyes is enough.” That’s all I said, but some scoundrel was found among his own people and reported to the camp commandant about these bitter words of mine.

Our camp commandant, or, in their words, Lagerführer, was the German Müller. He was short, thick-set, blond, and he was all sort of white: the hair on his head was white, his eyebrows, his eyelashes, even his eyes were whitish and bulging. He spoke Russian like you and me, and even leaned on the “o” like a native Volga native. And he was a terrible master at swearing. And where the hell did he learn this craft? It used to be that he would line us up in front of the block - that’s what they called the barracks - he would walk in front of the line with his pack of SS men, holding his right hand in flight. He has it in leather glove, and the glove has a lead gasket so as not to damage your fingers. He goes and hits every second person in the nose, drawing blood. He called this “flu prevention.” And so every day. There were only four blocks in the camp, and now he’s giving “prevention” to the first block, tomorrow to the second, and so on. He was a neat bastard, he worked seven days a week. There was only one thing he, a fool, could not figure out: before going to lay hands on him, in order to inflame himself, he cursed for ten minutes in front of the line. He swears in vain, and this makes us feel better: it’s like our words are ours, natural, like the wind is blowing from our native side... If only he knew that his swearing gives us great pleasure, he wouldn’t swear in Russian, but only in your own language. Only one of my Muscovite friends was terribly angry with him. “When he swears,” he says, “I close my eyes and it’s like I’m sitting in a pub in Moscow, on Zatsepa, and I want beer so much that even my head is spinning.”

So this same commandant, the day after I said about cubic meters, calls me. In the evening, a translator and two guards come to the barracks. “Who is Andrey Sokolov?” I responded. “March behind us, Herr Lagerführer himself demands you.” It’s clear why he demands it. On spray. I said goodbye to my comrades, they all knew that I was going to my death, I sighed and went. I walk through the camp yard, look at the stars, say goodbye to them, and think: “So you have suffered, Andrei Sokolov, and in the camp - number three hundred and thirty-one.” I somehow felt sorry for Irinka and the kids, and then this sadness subsided and I began to gather my courage to look into the hole of the pistol fearlessly, as befits a soldier, so that the enemies would not see at my last minute that I had to give up my life after all. difficult…

In the commandant's room there are flowers on the windows, it is clean, like in our good club. At the table are all the camp authorities. Five people are sitting, drinking schnapps and snacking on lard. On the table they have an open huge bottle of schnapps, bread, lard, soaked apples, open jars with various canned goods. I instantly looked at all this grub, and - you won’t believe it - I was so sick that I couldn’t vomit. I’m hungry like a wolf, I’m unaccustomed to human food, and here there’s so much goodness in front of you... Somehow I suppressed the nausea, but through great force I tore my eyes away from the table.

A half-drunk Muller sits right in front of me, playing with a pistol, throwing it from hand to hand, and he looks at me and doesn’t blink, like a snake. Well, my hands are at my sides, my worn-out heels click, and I report loudly: “Prisoner of war Andrei Sokolov, on your orders, Herr Commandant, has appeared.” He asks me: “So, Russian Ivan, is four cubic meters of output a lot?” “That’s right,” I say, “Herr Commandant, a lot.” - “Is one enough for your grave?” - “That’s right, Herr Commandant, it’s quite enough and will even remain.”

He stood up and said: “I will do you a great honor, now I will personally shoot you for these words. It’s inconvenient here, let’s go into the yard and sign there.” “Your will,” I tell him. He stood there, thought, and then threw the pistol on the table and poured a full glass of schnapps, took a piece of bread, put a slice of lard on it and handed it all to me and said: “Before you die, Russian Ivan, drink to victory.” German weapons».

I was about to take the glass and snack from his hands, but as soon as I heard these words, it was as if I was burned by fire! I think to myself: “So that I, a Russian soldier, would drink German weapons for the victory?!” Is there something you don't want, Herr Commandant? Damn it, I’m dying, so you’ll go to hell with your vodka!”

I put the glass on the table, put down the snack and said: “Thank you for the treat, but I don’t drink.” He smiles: “Would you like to drink to our victory? In that case, drink to your death.” What did I have to lose? “I will drink to my death and deliverance from torment,” I tell him. With that, I took the glass and poured it into myself in two gulps, but didn’t touch the appetizer, politely wiped my lips with my palm and said: “Thank you for the treat. I’m ready, Herr Commandant, come and sign me.”

But he looks attentively and says: “At least have a bite before you die.” I answer him: “I don’t have a snack after the first glass.” He pours a second one and gives it to me. I drank the second one and again I don’t touch the snack, I’m trying to be brave, I think: “At least I’ll get drunk before I go into the yard and give up my life.” The commandant raised his white eyebrows high and asked: “Why aren’t you having a snack, Russian Ivan? Do not be shy!" And I told him: “Sorry, Herr Commandant, I’m not used to having a snack even after the second glass.” He puffed out his cheeks, snorted, and then burst into laughter and through his laughter said something quickly in German: apparently, he was translating my words to his friends. They also laughed, moved their chairs, turned their faces towards me and already, I noticed, they were looking at me differently, seemingly softer.

The commandant pours me a third glass, and his hands are shaking with laughter. I drank this glass, took a small bite of bread, and put the rest on the table. I wanted to show them, the damned one, that although I was perishing from hunger, I was not going to choke on their handouts, that I had my own, Russian dignity and pride, and that they did not turn me into a beast, no matter how hard they tried.

After this, the commandant became serious in appearance, straightened two iron crosses on his chest, came out from the table unarmed and said: “That's what, Sokolov, you are a real Russian soldier. You are a brave soldier. I am also a soldier, and I respect worthy opponents. I won't shoot you. In addition, today our valiant troops reached the Volga and completely captured Stalingrad. This is a great joy for us, and therefore I generously give you life. Go to your block, and this is for your courage,” and from the table he hands me a small loaf of bread and a piece of lard.

I pressed the bread to me with all my might, I was holding the lard in my left hand, and I was so confused by such an unexpected turn that I didn’t even say thank you, I turned around to the left, I’m going to the exit, and I myself thought: “He’s going to shine between my shoulder blades now, and I won’t bring this grub to the guys.” No, it worked out. And this time death passed me by, only a chill came from it...

I left the commandant's office on firm feet, but in the yard I was carried away. He fell into the barracks and fell onto the cement floor without memory. Our guys woke me up in the dark: “Tell me!” Well, I remembered what happened in the commandant’s room and told them. “How are we going to share the food?” - my bunk neighbor asks, and his voice is trembling. “Equal share for everyone,” I tell him. We waited for dawn. Bread and lard were cut with a harsh thread. Everyone got a piece of bread the size of a matchbox, every crumb was taken into account, well, and lard, you know, just to anoint your lips. However, they shared without offense.

Soon we were transferred, about three hundred of the strongest people, to drain the swamps, then to the Ruhr region to work in the mines. I stayed there until the year forty-four. By this time, ours had already turned Germany’s cheekbone to one side and the Nazis stopped disdaining prisoners. Somehow they lined us up, the entire day shift, and some visiting chief lieutenant said through an interpreter: “Whoever served in the army or worked as a driver before the war is a step forward.” Seven of us, the former driver, stepped in. They gave us worn overalls and sent us under escort to the city of Potsdam. They arrived there and shook us all apart. I was assigned to work at Todt - the Germans had such a sharashka office for the construction of roads and defensive structures.

I drove a German engineer with the rank of army major in the Oppel Admiral. Oh, and he was a fat fascist! Small, pot-bellied, the same in width and length, and broad-shouldered in the back, like a good woman. In front of him, three chins hang above the collar of his uniform, and three thick folds on the back of his neck. On it, as I determined, there were at least three pounds of pure fat. He walks, puffs like a steam locomotive, and sits down to eat - just hold on! He used to chew and sip cognac from a flask all day. Sometimes he gave me something to do: stop on the road, cut sausages, cheese, have a snack and drink; when he’s in a good spirit, he’ll throw me a piece, like a dog. I never gave it to anyone, no, I considered it low for myself. But be that as it may, there’s no comparison with the camp, and little by little I began to look like a person, little by little, but I began to get better.

For two weeks I drove my major from Potsdam to Berlin and back, and then he was sent to the front line to build defensive lines against ours. And then I finally forgot how to sleep: all night long I thought about how I could escape to my people, to my homeland.

We arrived in the city of Polotsk. At dawn, for the first time in two years, I heard our artillery thunder, and, do you know, brother, how my heart began to beat? The single man still went on dates with Irina, and even then it didn’t knock like that! The fighting was already about eighteen kilometers east of Polotsk. The Germans in the city became angry and nervous, and my fat man began to get drunk more and more often. During the day we go outside the city with him, and he decides how to build fortifications, and at night he drinks alone. All swollen, bags hanging under the eyes...

“Well,” I think, “there’s nothing more to wait for, my time has come!” And I shouldn’t run away alone, but take my fat man with me, he’ll be good for ours!”

I found a two-kilogram weight in the ruins, wrapped it in a cleaning cloth, in case I had to hit it so that there would be no blood, picked up a piece of telephone wire on the road, diligently prepared everything I needed, and buried it under the front seat. Two days before I said goodbye to the Germans, in the evening I was driving from a gas station, I saw a German non-commissioned officer walking, drunk as dirt, holding onto the wall with his hands. I stopped the car, led him into the ruins, shook him out of his uniform, and took the cap off his head. He also put all this property under the seat and was gone.

On the morning of June twenty-ninth, my major orders him to be taken out of town, in the direction of Trosnitsa. There he supervised the construction of fortifications. We left. The major is quietly dozing in the back seat, and my heart is almost jumping out of my chest. I was driving fast, but outside the city I slowed down the gas, then I stopped the car, got out, and looked around: far behind me there were two freight trucks. I took out the weight and opened the door wider. The fat man leaned back in his seat, snoring as if he had his wife at his side. Well, I hit him in the left temple with a weight. He dropped his head too. To be sure, I hit him again, but I didn’t want to kill him to death. I had to deliver him alive, he had to tell our people a lot of things. I took the Parabellum out of his holster, put it in my pocket, drove the crowbar behind the back of the back seat, threw the telephone wire around the major’s neck and tied it with a blind knot on the crowbar. This is so that it does not fall on its side or fall when driving fast. He quickly put on a German uniform and cap, and drove the car straight to where the earth was humming, where the battle was going on.

The German front line slipped between two bunkers. The machine gunners jumped out of the dugout, and I deliberately slowed down so that they could see that the major was coming. But they started shouting, waving their arms, saying that you can’t go there, but I didn’t seem to understand, I threw on the gas and went at full eighty. Until they came to their senses and began firing machine guns at the car, and I was already in no man’s land between the craters, weaving like a hare.

Here the Germans are hitting me from behind, and here their outlines are firing towards me from machine guns. The windshield was pierced in four places, the radiator was flogged by bullets... But now there was a forest above the lake, our guys were running towards the car, and I jumped into this forest, opened the door, fell to the ground and kissed it, and I couldn’t breathe...

A young guy, wearing protective shoulder straps on his tunic, the likes of which I have never seen, is the first to run up to me, baring his teeth: “Yeah, damn Fritz, got lost?” I tore off my German uniform, threw my cap at my feet and said to him: “My dear lip-slapper! Dear son! What kind of Fritz do you think I am when I am a natural Voronezh resident? I was a prisoner, okay? Now untie this hog sitting in the car, take his briefcase and take me to your commander.” I handed over the pistol to them and went from hand to hand, and by the evening I found myself with the colonel - the division commander. By this time, I was fed, taken to the bathhouse, interrogated, and given uniforms, so I showed up at the colonel’s dugout, as expected, clean in body and soul and in full uniform. The colonel got up from the table and walked towards me. In front of all the officers, he hugged me and said: “Thank you, soldier, for the dear gift I brought from the Germans. Your major and his briefcase are worth more than twenty “languages” to us. I will petition the command to nominate you for a government award.” And from these words of his, from his affection, I was very worried, my lips trembled, did not obey, all I could squeeze out of myself was: “Please, Comrade Colonel, enlist me in the rifle unit.”

But the colonel laughed and patted me on the shoulder: “What kind of warrior are you if you can barely stand on your feet? I'll send you to the hospital today. They’ll treat you there, feed you, after that you’ll go home to your family for a month’s vacation, and when you return to us, we’ll see where to place you.”

And the colonel and all the officers he had in the dugout soulfully said goodbye to me by the hand, and I left completely agitated, because in two years I had become unaccustomed to human treatment. And note, brother, that for a long time, as soon as I had to talk to the authorities, out of habit, I involuntarily pulled my head into my shoulders, as if I was afraid that they might hit me. This is how we were educated in the fascist camps...

From the hospital I immediately wrote a letter to Irina. He described everything briefly, how he was in captivity, how he escaped with the German major. And, pray tell, where did this childhood boast come from? I couldn’t resist saying that the colonel had promised to nominate me for an award...

I slept and ate for two weeks. They fed me little by little, but often, otherwise, if they had given me enough food, I could have died, that’s what the doctor said. I've gained quite a bit of strength. And after two weeks I couldn’t take a piece of food into my mouth. There was no answer from home, and I must admit, I felt sad. Food doesn’t even come to my mind, sleep escapes me, all sorts of bad thoughts creep into my head... In the third week I receive a letter from Voronezh. But it’s not Irina who writes, but my neighbor, carpenter Ivan Timofeevich. God forbid anyone receives such letters!.. He reports that back in June of 1942, the Germans bombed an aircraft factory and one heavy bomb hit my little house. Irina and her daughters were just at home... Well, she writes that they didn’t find a trace of them, and in the place of the hut there was a deep hole... I didn’t read the letter to the end this time. My vision darkened, my heart clenched into a ball and wouldn’t unclench. I lay down on the bed, lay down for a while, and finished reading. A neighbor writes that Anatoly was in the city during the bombing. In the evening he returned to the village, looked at the pit and went into the city again at night. Before leaving, he told his neighbor that he would ask to volunteer for the front. That's all.

When my heart unclenched and the blood began to roar in my ears, I remembered how hard it was for my Irina to part with me at the station. This means that even then a woman’s heart told her that we would no longer see each other in this world. And then I pushed her away... I had a family, my own home, all this had been put together for years, and everything collapsed in a single moment, I was left alone. I think: “Didn’t I just dream about my awkward life?” But in captivity, almost every night I talked to myself, of course, and with Irina and the children, encouraged them, they say, I will return, my family, do not worry about me, I am strong, I will survive, and again we will all together... So I've been talking to the dead for two years?!

The narrator fell silent for a minute, and then said in a different, intermittent and quiet voice:

Come on, brother, let's have a smoke, otherwise I'm feeling suffocated.

We started smoking. In a forest flooded with hollow water, a woodpecker was tapping loudly. The warm wind still lazily stirred the dry earrings on the alder tree; The clouds still floated in the high blue, as if under tight white sails, but the vast world, preparing for the great accomplishments of spring, for the eternal affirmation of the living in life, seemed different to me in these moments of mournful silence.

It was hard to remain silent, so I asked:

What's next? - the narrator reluctantly responded. “Then I received a month’s leave from the colonel, and a week later I was already in Voronezh. I walked on foot to the place where my family once lived. A deep crater filled with rusty water, waist-deep weeds all around... Wilderness, cemetery silence. Oh, it was hard for me, brother! He stood there, grieved at heart, and went back to the station. I couldn’t stay there for an hour; on the same day I went back to the division.

But three months later, joy flashed through me, like the sun from behind a cloud: Anatoly was found. He sent a letter to me at the front, apparently from another front. I learned my address from a neighbor, Ivan Timofeevich. It turns out that he first ended up in an artillery school; This is where his talents for mathematics came in handy. A year later he graduated from college with honors, went to the front and now writes that he received the rank of captain, commands a battery of “forty-fives”, has six orders and medals. In a word, he darned the parent from all over. And again I was terribly proud of him! Whatever one may say, my own son is the captain and commander of the battery, this is not a joke! And even with such orders. It’s okay that his father carries shells and other military equipment in a Studebaker. My father’s business is outdated, but for him, the captain, everything is ahead.

And at night I began to dream like an old man: how the war would end, how I would marry my son and live with the young people, work as a carpenter and nurse my grandchildren. In a word, all sorts of old man stuff. But even here I had a complete misfire. During the winter we advanced without respite, and we had no time to write to each other very often, but towards the end of the war, already near Berlin, I sent Anatoly a letter in the morning, and the next day I received an answer. And then I realized that my son and I approached the German capital by different routes, but we were close to each other. I can’t wait, I really can’t wait to have tea when we meet him. Well, we met... Exactly on the ninth of May, in the morning, on Victory Day, a German sniper killed my Anatoly...

In the afternoon the company commander calls me. I saw an artillery lieutenant colonel, unfamiliar to me, sitting with him. I entered the room, and he stood up as if in front of a senior man. The commander of my company says: “To you, Sokolov,” and he turned to the window. It penetrated me as if electric shock because I sensed something bad. The lieutenant colonel came up to me and quietly said: “Take courage, father! Your son, captain Sokolov, was killed today at the battery. Come with me!"

I swayed, but stayed on my feet. Now, as if in a dream, I remember how I was driving with the lieutenant colonel in a large car, how we made our way through streets littered with rubble, I vaguely remember the soldier formation and the coffin upholstered in red velvet. And I see Anatoly like you, brother. I approached the coffin. My son lies in it and is not mine. Mine is always a smiling, narrow-shouldered boy, with a sharp Adam's apple on his thin neck, and here lies a young, broad-shouldered, handsome man, his eyes are half-closed, as if he is looking somewhere past me, into a distant distance unknown to me. Only in the corners of his lips remained forever the smile of the old son, Tolka, whom I once knew... I kissed him and stepped aside. The lieutenant colonel made a speech. My Anatoly’s comrades and friends are wiping away their tears, but my unshed tears have apparently dried up in my heart. Maybe that's why it hurts so much?..

I buried my last joy and hope in a foreign, German land, my son’s battery struck, seeing off his commander on a long journey, and it was as if something broke in me... I arrived at my unit not myself. But then I was soon demobilized. Where to go? Is it really in Voronezh? Never! I remembered that my friend lived in Uryupinsk, demobilized in the winter due to injury - he once invited me to his place - I remembered and went to Uryupinsk.

My friend and his wife were childless and lived in their own house on the edge of the city. Although he had a disability, he worked as a driver in an auto company, and I got a job there too. I stayed with a friend and they gave me shelter. We transported various cargoes to the regions, and in the fall we switched to exporting grain. It was at this time that I met my new son, this one who plays in the sand.

It used to be that when you returned to the city from a flight, of course, the first thing you did was go to the teahouse: grab something, and, of course, drink a hundred grams from what was left. I must say, I’ve already become thoroughly addicted to this harmful activity... And then one time I saw this guy near the teahouse, and the next day I saw him again. A sort of little ragamuffin: his face is covered in watermelon juice, covered with dust, dirty as dust, unkempt, and his eyes are like stars at night after the rain! And I fell in love with him so much that, miraculously, I already began to miss him, and I was in a hurry to get off the flight to see him as soon as possible. He fed himself near the tea shop - whoever would give what.

On the fourth day, straight from the state farm, loaded with bread, I turned up to the teahouse. My boy is sitting there on the porch, chattering with his little legs and, apparently, hungry. I leaned out the window and shouted to him: “Hey, Vanyushka! Get in the car quickly, I’ll take you to the elevator, and from there we’ll come back here and have lunch.” He flinched at my shout, jumped off the porch, climbed onto the step and quietly said: “How do you know, uncle, that my name is Vanya?” And he opened his eyes wide, waiting for me to answer him. Well, I tell him that I am an experienced person and know everything.

He came in from the right side, I opened the door, sat him next to me, and off we went. Such a smart guy, but suddenly he became quiet for something, lost in thought, and no, no, and looked at me from under his long, upward-curved eyelashes, and sighed. Such a small bird, but he has already learned to sigh. Is it his business? I ask: “Where is your father, Vanya?” Whispers: “He died at the front.” - “And mom?” - “Mom was killed by a bomb on the train while we were traveling.” - “Where were you coming from?” - “I don’t know, I don’t remember...” - “And you don’t have anyone relatives here?” - “Nobody.” - “Where are you spending the night?” - “Where you have to.”

A burning tear began to boil inside me, and I immediately decided: “We mustn’t disappear separately! I’ll take him as my child.” And immediately my soul felt light and somehow light. I leaned towards him and quietly asked: “Vanyushka, do you know who I am?” He asked as he exhaled: “Who?” I tell him just as quietly. "I am your father".

My God, what happened here! He rushed to my neck, kissed me on the cheeks, on the lips, on the forehead, and he, like a waxwing, screamed so loudly and thinly that even in the booth it was muffled: “Dear folder! I knew! I knew you would find me! You'll find it anyway! I’ve been waiting so long for you to find me!” He pressed himself close to me and trembled all over, like a blade of grass in the wind. And there’s a fog in my eyes, and I’m also trembling all over, and my hands are shaking... How I didn’t lose the steering wheel then, you can wonder! But he still accidentally slid into a ditch and turned off the engine. Until the fog in my eyes passed, I was afraid to drive, lest I run into someone. I stood like that for about five minutes, and my son kept huddling closer to me with all his might, silent, shuddering. I hugged him with my right hand, slowly pressed him to me, and with my left I turned the car around and drove back to my apartment. What kind of elevator is there for me, then I had no time for the elevator.

I left the car near the gate, took my new son in my arms, and carried him into the house. And he wrapped his arms around my neck and didn’t tear himself away all the way. He pressed his cheek against my unshaven cheek, as if stuck. So I brought it in. The owner and hostess were exactly at home. I walked in, blinked both my eyes, and said cheerfully: “So I found my Vanyushka! Welcome us good people!” They, both of whom were childless, immediately realized what was going on, they started fussing and running around. But I can’t tear my son away from me. But somehow I persuaded him. I washed his hands with soap and sat him down at the table. The hostess poured cabbage soup into his plate, and when she saw how greedily he was eating, she burst into tears. He stands by the stove, crying into his apron. My Vanya saw that she was crying, ran up to her, tugged at her hem and said: “Auntie, why are you crying? Dad found me near the tea shop, everyone here should be happy, but you’re crying.” And that one - God forbid, it spills even more, it’s literally all wet!

After lunch, I took him to the hairdresser, cut his hair, and at home I bathed him in a trough and wrapped him in a clean sheet. He hugged me and fell asleep in my arms. He carefully laid it on the bed, drove to the elevator, unloaded the bread, drove the car to the parking lot - and ran to the shops. I bought him cloth pants, a shirt, sandals and a cap made from a washcloth. Of course, all this turned out to be worthless in terms of growth and quality. The hostess even scolded me for my pants. “You,” he says, “are crazy, to dress a child in cloth pants in such heat!” And immediately - I put the sewing machine on the table, rummaged through the chest, and an hour later my Vanyushka had his satin panties and a white shirt with short sleeves ready. I went to bed with him and for the first time in for a long time fell asleep peacefully. However, at night I got up four times. I’ll wake up, and he’ll be nestled under my arm, like a sparrow under cover, quietly snoring, and my soul will feel so happy that I can’t even express it in words! You try not to stir, so as not to wake him, but still you can’t resist, you slowly get up, light a match and admire him...

I woke up before dawn, I don’t understand why I felt so stuffy? And it was my son who crawled out of the sheet and lay down across me, spread out and pressed his little leg against my throat. And it’s restless to sleep with him, but I’m used to it, I’m bored without him. At night, you stroke him sleepily, or smell the hairs on his cowlicks, and his heart moves away, becomes softer, otherwise it has turned to stone from grief...

At first, he went on trips with me by car, then I realized that it wouldn’t do. What do I need alone? A piece of bread and an onion with salt, and the soldier was fed for the whole day. But with him, it’s a different matter: he needs to get milk, then boil an egg, and again, he can’t live without something hot. But things don't wait. I gathered my courage, left him in the care of his mistress, and he shed tears until the evening, and in the evening he ran off to the elevator to meet me. I waited there until late at night.

It was difficult for me with him at first. Once we went to bed before dark, I was very tired during the day, and he was always chirping like a sparrow, and then he kept silent. I ask: “What are you thinking about, son?” And he asks me, looking at the ceiling himself: “Dad, where are you going with your leather coat?” I've never owned a leather coat in my life! I had to dodge: “It’s left in Voronezh,” I tell him. “Why did you look for me for so long?” I answer him: “Son, I was looking for you in Germany, in Poland, and all over Belarus, but you ended up in Uryupinsk.” - “Is Uryupinsk closer to Germany? How far is it from our home to Poland?” So we chat with him before bed.

Do you think, brother, that he was wrong to ask about the leather coat? No, all this is not without reason. This means that once upon a time his real father wore such a coat, so he remembered it. After all, a child’s memory is like a summer lightning: it will flare up, briefly illuminate everything, and then go out. So his memory, like lightning, works in flashes.

Maybe we could have lived with him for another year in Uryupinsk, but in November a sin happened to me: I was driving through the mud, in one farm my car skidded, and then a cow turned up, and I knocked her down. Well, as you know, the women started screaming, people came running, and the traffic inspector was right there. He took my driver’s book from me, no matter how much I asked him to have mercy. The cow got up, lifted her tail and started galloping along the alleys, and I lost my book. I worked as a carpenter for the winter, and then got in touch with a friend, also a colleague - he works as a driver in your region, in the Kasharsky district - and he invited me to his place. He writes that if you work in carpentry for six months, then in our region they will give you a new book. So my son and I are going on a business trip to Kashary.

Yes, how can I tell you, and if I hadn’t had this accident with the cow, I would still have left Uryupinsk. Melancholy does not allow me to stay in one place for a long time. When my Vanyushka grows up and I have to send him to school, then maybe I’ll calm down and settle down in one place. And now we are walking with him on Russian soil.

It’s hard for him to walk,” I said.

So he doesn’t walk much on his own feet at all, he rides more and more on me. I’ll put him on my shoulders and carry him, but if he wants to get lost, he gets off me and runs to the side of the road, kicking like a kid. All this, brother, would have been fine, somehow we would have lived with him, but my heart was swaying, the piston needs to be changed... Sometimes it grabs and presses so hard that the white light in my eyes fades. I'm afraid that someday I'll die in my sleep and scare my little son. And here’s another problem: almost every night I see my dear dead in my dreams. And it’s increasingly like I’m behind the barbed wire, and they’re free, on the other side... I talk about everything with Irina and the kids, but I just want to push the wire with my hands - they walk away from me, as if they’re melting before my eyes... And Here’s an amazing thing: during the day I always hold myself tightly, you can’t squeeze a “ooh” or a sigh out of me, but at night I wake up, and the whole pillow is wet with tears...

A stranger, but who had become close to me, stood up and extended a large hand, hard as a tree:

Goodbye brother, happy life to you!

And you are happy to reach Kashar.

Thank you. Hey son, let's go to the boat.

The boy ran up to his father, positioned himself on the right and, holding onto the hem of his father’s quilted jacket, trotted next to the man who was striding widely.

Two orphaned people, two grains of sand, thrown into foreign lands by a military hurricane of unprecedented force... What awaits them ahead? And I would like to think that this Russian man, a man of unbending will, will endure and grow up next to his father’s shoulder, one who, having matured, will be able to endure everything, overcome everything on his way, if his homeland calls him to do so.

With heavy sadness I looked after them... Maybe everything would have turned out well if we parted, but Vanyushka, walking away a few steps and braiding his scanty legs, turned to face me as he walked and waved his pink little hand. And suddenly, as if a soft but clawed paw squeezed my heart, I hastily turned away. No, it’s not only in their sleep that elderly men, who have turned gray during the years of war, cry. They cry in reality. The main thing here is to be able to turn away in time. The most important thing here is not to hurt the child’s heart, so that he doesn’t see a burning and stingy man’s tear running down your cheek...