Andrey Platonov
Unknown flower
There was a small flower in the world. No one knew that he was on earth. He grew up alone in a vacant lot; cows and goats did not go there, and the children from the pioneer camp never played there. Grass did not grow in the wasteland, but only old gray stones lay, and between them was dry dead clay. Only one wind blew through the wasteland; like a grandfather-sower, the wind carried seeds and sowed them everywhere - both in the black damp earth and on the bare stone wasteland. In the good black earth, flowers and herbs were born from seeds, and in stone and clay, the seeds died.
And once one seed fell from the wind, and it nestled in a hole between the stone and the clay. This seed languished for a long time, and then it was saturated with dew, disintegrated, released the thin hairs of the root, dug into the stone and clay and began to grow.
So that little flower began to live in the world. He had nothing to eat in stone and clay; raindrops that fell from the sky descended on the top of the earth and did not penetrate to its root, but the flower kept living and living and growing little by little higher. He raised the leaves against the wind, and the wind died down near the flower; specks of dust fell from the wind onto the clay, which the wind brought from the black fat earth; and in those dust particles there was food for the flower, but the dust particles were dry. To moisten them, the flower guarded the dew all night and collected it drop by drop on its leaves. And when the leaves were heavy with dew, the flower lowered them, and the dew fell down; it moistened the black dust particles that the wind brought, and ate away the dead clay.
During the day the flower was guarded by the wind, and at night it was dew. He worked day and night to live and not die. He grew his leaves large so that they could stop the wind and collect dew. However, it was difficult for a flower to eat from some dust particles that fell out of the wind, and still collect dew for them. But he needed life and with patience overcame his pain from hunger and fatigue. Only once a day did the flower rejoice: when the first ray of the morning sun touched its weary leaves.
If the wind did not come to the wasteland for a long time, then the little flower became bad, and it no longer had enough strength to live and grow.
The flower, however, did not want to live sadly; therefore, when he was very sad, he dozed off. Yet he constantly tried to grow, even if bare stone and dry clay gnawed at his roots. At such a time, its leaves could not be saturated with full strength and turn green: one vein they had blue, the other red, the third blue or gold. This happened because the flower lacked food, and its torment was indicated in the leaves by different colors. The flower itself, however, did not know this: after all, he was blind and did not see himself as he was.
In the middle of summer, the flower spreads its crown at the top. Before that, it looked like grass, and now it has become a real flower. His corolla was composed of petals of a simple light color, clear and strong, like a star. And, like a star, he shone with a living flickering fire, and he could be seen even on a dark night. And when the wind came to the wasteland, it always touched the flower and carried its scent with it.
And one morning the girl Dasha was walking past that wasteland. She lived with her friends in a pioneer camp, and this morning she woke up and missed her mother. She wrote a letter to her mother and took the letter to the station so that it would arrive as soon as possible. On the way, Dasha kissed the envelope with the letter and envied him that he would see her mother sooner than she did.
At the edge of the wasteland, Dasha felt a fragrance. She looked around. There were no flowers nearby, only a small grass grew along the path, and the wasteland was completely bare; but the wind came from the wasteland and brought from there a quiet smell, like the calling voice of a small unknown life. Dasha remembered a fairy tale that her mother had told her for a long time. The mother spoke of the flower, which was still sad for its mother - the rose, but he could not cry, and only in the fragrance did his sadness pass.
“Maybe this flower is missing its mother there, as I am,” thought Dasha.
She went to the wasteland and saw that little flower near the stone. Dasha has never seen such a flower - not in a field, not in a forest, not in a book in a picture, not in a botanical garden, anywhere. She sat down on the ground near the flower and asked him:
- Why are you like this?
“I don’t know,” the flower replied.
- Why are you different from others?
The flower again did not know what to say. But for the first time he heard the voice of a man so close, for the first time someone looked at him, and he did not want to offend Dasha with silence.
- Because it's hard for me, - answered the flower.
- What is your name? - Dasha asked.
- Nobody calls me, - said the little flower, - I live alone.
Dasha looked around in the wasteland.
- Here is a stone, here is clay! - she said. - How do you live alone, how did you grow out of clay and did not die, little like that?
In a beautiful and furious world
In the Tolubeevsky depot, Alexander Vasilievich Maltsev was considered the best locomotive driver.
He was thirty years old, but he already had the qualification of a first class driver and had driven fast trains for a long time. When the first powerful passenger steam locomotive of the IS series arrived at our depot, Maltsev was assigned to work on this machine, which was quite reasonable and correct. An elderly man from the depot locksmiths named Fyodor Petrovich Drabanov worked as an assistant for Maltsev, but he soon passed the exam for a driver and went to work for another machine, and instead of Drabanov I was assigned to work in Maltsev's brigade as an assistant; before that I also worked as an assistant mechanic, but only on an old, low-power machine.
I was pleased with my appointment. The IS machine, which was the only one on our traction site at that time, inspired me by its very appearance; I could look at her for a long time, and a special moved joy awakened in me - just as beautiful as in childhood when I first read Pushkin's poems. In addition, I wanted to work in a brigade of a first-class mechanic in order to learn from him the art of driving heavy high-speed trains.
Alexander Vasilyevich accepted my appointment to his brigade calmly and indifferently; he apparently did not care who his assistants would be.
Before the trip, as usual, I checked all the components of the car, tested all its service and auxiliary mechanisms and calmed down, considering the car ready for the trip. Alexander Vasilyevich saw my work, he followed it, but after me he checked the condition of the car with his own hands, as if he did not trust me.
This was repeated afterwards, and I was already used to the fact that Alexander Vasilyevich constantly interfered with my duties, although he was silently upset. But usually, as soon as we were on the move, I forgot about my grief. Distracting my attention from the devices monitoring the state of the running steam locomotive, from observing the operation of the left car and the track ahead, I looked at Maltsev. He led the cast with the courageous confidence of a great master, with the concentration of an inspired artist who absorbed the entire external world into his inner experience and therefore dominates it. Alexander Vasilyevich's eyes looked ahead abstractly, as if empty, but I knew that he saw them all the way ahead and all nature rushing towards us - even a sparrow swept from the ballast slope by the wind piercing the space of the car, even this sparrow attracted Maltsev's gaze, and for a moment he turned his head after the sparrow: what will become of him after us, where did he fly?
It was our fault that we were never late; on the contrary, we were often detained at intermediate stations, which we must proceed on the move, because we were walking with a surge of time and we were put back into the schedule by means of delays.
We usually worked in silence; only occasionally did Alexander Vasilyevich, without turning in my direction, bang the key on the boiler, wishing that I would turn my attention to some disorder in the operating mode of the machine, or preparing me for a sharp change in this mode, so that I was vigilant. I always understood the silent instructions of my senior comrade and worked with full zeal, but the mechanic still treated me, as well as the grease-fireman, aloof and constantly checking grease nipples at parking lots, tightening the bolts in the drawbar assemblies, tested axle boxes on driving axles and so on. If I had just examined and oiled any working rubbing part, Maltsev followed me again inspecting and oiled it, as if he did not consider my work to be valid.
- I, Alexander Vasilyevich, have already checked this crosshead, - I told him once, when he began to check this detail after me.
- And I myself want - with a smile, replied Maltsev, and in his smile there was sadness that struck me.
Later I understood the meaning of his sadness and the reason for his constant indifference to us. He felt his superiority in front of us, because he understood the machine more accurately than we did, and he did not believe that I or anyone else could learn the secret of his talent, the secret of seeing both a passing sparrow and a signal ahead, feeling the path at the same moment, composition weight and machine force. Maltsev understood, of course, that in diligence, in diligence, we could even overcome him, but he could not imagine that we loved the steam locomotive better and drove trains better than him - he thought it was impossible. And Maltsev was therefore sad with us; he missed his talent, like he was alone, not knowing how to express it so that we could understand.
And we really could not understand his skills. I once asked for permission to lead me the composition myself; Alexander Vasilyevich allowed me to travel forty kilometers and sat down in the assistant's place. I drove the train and after twenty kilometers already had four minutes late, and overcame exits from long ascents at a speed of no more than thirty kilometers per hour. Maltsev drove the car after me; he took climbs at a speed of fifty kilometers, and on curves he did not throw the car, like mine, and he soon caught up with the time I had lost.
For about a year I worked as an assistant for Maltsev, from August to July, and on July 5, Maltsev made his last trip as a driver of a courier train ...
We took a train of eighty passenger axles, which was four hours late on the way. The dispatcher went to the locomotive and specifically asked Alexander Vasilyevich to reduce the delay of the train as much as possible, to reduce this delay to at least three o'clock, otherwise it would be difficult for him to issue an empty truck to the next road. Maltsev promised him to catch up with time, and we set off ahead.
It was eight o'clock in the afternoon, but the summer day was still going on, and the sun was shining with solemn morning strength. Alexander Vasilyevich demanded from me to keep the steam pressure in the boiler only half an atmosphere below the limit.
In half an hour we went out into the steppe, on a calm, soft profile. Maltsev brought the speed to ninety kilometers and did not give up below, on the contrary - on the horizontal and small slopes he brought the speed to one hundred kilometers. On the ascents, I forced the firebox to its maximum capacity and forced the stoker to manually load the shurovka to help the stokker machine, because my steam was getting low.
Maltsev drove the car forward, moving the regulator to the full arc and giving reverse Reverse is a device that reverses the movement of a car. full cutoff. We were now walking towards a powerful cloud that appeared over the horizon.
From our side the cloud was illuminated by the sun, and from within it fierce, irritated lightning tore, and we saw how the lightning swords pierced vertically into the silent distant land, and we rushed madly towards that distant land, as if in a hurry to protect it. Alexander Vasilyevich, apparently, was carried away by this sight: he leaned far out of the window, looking ahead, and his eyes, accustomed to smoke, to fire and space, were now sparkling with enthusiasm. He understood that the work and power of our machine could be compared with the work of a thunderstorm, and perhaps he was proud of this idea.
Soon we noticed a dusty whirlwind rushing across the steppe towards us. This means that the storm cloud was carried head-on by the storm. The light has darkened around us; dry earth and steppe sand whistled and rasped against the iron body of the locomotive; there was no more visibility, and I turned on the turbo dynamo for lighting and turned on the headlight in front of the locomotive. It was now difficult for us to breathe from the hot dusty whirlwind that was hammered into the cockpit and doubled in strength by the oncoming traffic of the car, from the flue gases and the early dusk that surrounded us. The locomotive was howling its way forward into the dim, stifling darkness - into the gap of light created by the head-on searchlight. The speed dropped to sixty kilometers; we worked and looked ahead as in a dream.
Suddenly a large drop hit the windshield - and immediately dried up, soaked by the hot wind. Then an instant blue light flashed at my eyelashes and penetrated into me to the very shuddering heart; I grabbed the injector valve The injector is a pump., but the pain in my heart had already left me, and I immediately glanced in the direction of Maltsev - he looked ahead and drove the car without changing his face.
- What was it? I asked the stoker.
“Lightning,” he said. - She wanted to hit us, but she missed a little.
Maltsev heard our words.
- What kind of lightning? He asked loudly.
“I was just now,” said the fireman.
- I did not see, - said Maltsev and again turned his face outward.
- Have not seen! - the fireman was surprised. - I thought the cauldron exploded when it was shining, but he didn't see.
I also doubted that it was lightning.
- Where's the thunder? I asked.
“We drove through the thunder,” explained the fireman. - Thunder always hits after. While he hit, while the air swayed, while back and forth, we flew away from him. The passengers may have heard - they are behind.
It got dark altogether, and a quiet night came. We smelled the scent of damp earth, the scent of grasses and breads saturated with rain and thunderstorms, and rushed forward, catching up with time.
I noticed that Maltsev began to drive the car worse - on curves we were thrown, the speed reached more than a hundred kilometers, then dropped to forty. I decided that Alexander Vasilyevich was probably very worn out, and therefore did not say anything to him, although it was very difficult for me to keep the furnace and boiler operating in the best possible mode with such behavior of the mechanic. However, in half an hour we have to stop to get water, and there, at the stop, Alexander Vasilyevich will eat and rest a little. We have already caught up with forty minutes, and we will catch up to the end of our traction section for at least another hour.
Nevertheless, I was worried about Maltsev's fatigue and began to myself carefully look ahead - at the path and at the signals. On my side, above the left car, an electric lamp burned in the air, illuminating the waving, drawbar mechanism. I clearly saw the intense, confident work of the left-hand car, but then the lamp above it went out and began to burn as pale as one candle. I turned to the cockpit. There, too, all the lamps were now burning at a quarter of the incandescence, barely illuminating the devices. It is strange that Alexander Vasilyevich did not knock on my key at this moment to indicate such a disorder. It was clear that the turbo dynamo did not give the design speed and the voltage dropped. I began to regulate the turbo dynamo through the steam line and fiddled with this device for a long time, but the voltage did not rise.
At this time, a hazy cloud of red light passed over the dials of the instruments and the ceiling of the cockpit. I looked out.
Ahead, in the darkness, near or far - it was impossible to determine, a red streak of light vibrated across our path. I didn't understand what it was, but I understood what to do.
- Alexander Vasilievich! - I shouted and gave three beeps to stop.
There were explosions of firecrackers A petard is a signal explosive projectile used to stop a train in case of danger. under the bandages Bandage - a metal rim on a railroad wheel for increased strength. our wheels. I rushed to Maltsev; he turned his face to me and looked at me with empty, dead eyes. The arrow on the tachometer dial showed a speed of sixty kilometers.
- Maltsev! I shouted. - We are crushing firecrackers! - and stretched out his hands to control.
- Get out! - exclaimed Maltsev, and his eyes shone, reflecting the light of a dim lamp above the tachometer.
He instantly gave emergency braking and reversed reverse. I was pressed against the boiler, I heard the howling of the wheel rims, stripping the rails.
- Maltsev! - I said. - We need to open the cylinder taps, we will break the car.
- Do not! We will not break! - answered Maltsev.
We stopped. I pumped water into the boiler with an injector and looked out. Ahead of us, about ten meters away, a steam locomotive stood on our line, The tender is the back of the locomotive. in our direction. There was a man on the tender; in his hands was a long poker, red-hot at the end; and he waved it, wanting to stop the express train. This locomotive was the pusher of a freight train that stopped on the stretch.
So, while I was adjusting the turbodynamo and not looking ahead, we passed the yellow traffic light, and then the red one, and probably more than one warning signal of the trackmen. But why did Maltsev not notice these signals?
- Kostya! - Alexander Vasilievich called me.
I went up to him.
- Kostya! What's ahead of us?
The next day, I brought the return train to my station and handed over the locomotive to the depot, because its tires slightly shifted on two slopes. Having reported to the head of the depot about the incident, I took Maltsev by the arm to his place of residence; Maltsev himself was deeply depressed and did not go to the head of the depot.
We had not yet reached that house on a grassy street in which Maltsev lived, when he asked me to leave him alone.
“You can't,” I replied. - You, Alexander Vasilievich, are a blind man.
He looked at me with clear, thinking eyes.
- Now I see, go home ... I see everything - so my wife came out to meet me.
At the gate of the house where Maltsev lived, a woman, the wife of Alexander Vasilyevich, was really waiting, and her open black hair glittered in the sun.
- And her head is covered or without everything? I asked.
- Without, - answered Maltsev. - Who is blind - you or me?
- Well, if you see, then look, - I decided and walked away from Maltsev.
Maltsev was put on trial, and an investigation began. The investigator called me and asked what I thought about the incident with the express train. I replied that I thought that Maltsev was not to blame.
“He was blinded by a close discharge, by a lightning strike,” I said to the investigator. - He was wounded, and the nerves that control vision were damaged ... I do not know how to say exactly.
- I understand you, - said the investigator, - you say exactly. This is all possible, but not reliable. After all, Maltsev himself showed that he had not seen lightning.
- And I saw her, and the lubricant saw her too.
“So the lightning struck closer to you than to Maltsev,” reasoned the investigator. - Why are you and the lubricant not shell-shocked, not blind, and the driver Maltsev received a concussion of the optic nerves and went blind? What do you think?
I became stumped and then thought.
- Maltsev could not see the lightning, - I said.
The investigator listened to me in surprise.
“He couldn't see her. He went blind instantly - from the impact of an electromagnetic wave that goes ahead of the lightning light. Lightning light is a consequence of a discharge, not a cause of lightning. Maltsev was already blind when the lightning flashed, and the blind could not see the light.
- Interesting, - the investigator smiled. - I would have dropped Maltsev's case if he were still blind. But you know, now he sees just like you and me.
“He sees,” I confirmed.
“Was he blind,” the investigator continued, “when he was driving a courier train at high speed to the tail of a freight train?
“I was,” I confirmed.
The investigator looked at me closely.
- Why didn't he transfer control of the locomotive to you, or at least ordered you to stop the train?
“I don’t know,” I said.
“You see,” said the investigator. - An adult conscientious person drives a steam locomotive of a courier train, carries hundreds of people to certain death, accidentally avoids a disaster, and then justifies himself by the fact that he was blind. What it is?
- But he himself would have died! I say.
- Probably. However, I am more interested in the lives of hundreds of people than in the life of one person. Maybe he had his own reasons for dying.
“There wasn't,” I said.
The investigator became indifferent; he was already bored of me like a fool.
“You know everything except the main thing,” he said in slow thought. - You can go.
From the investigator, I went to Maltsev's apartment.
“Alexander Vasilyevich,” I said to him, “why didn't you call me for help when you were blind?
“I saw,” he replied. - Why did I need you?
- What did you saw?
- Everything: the line, signals, wheat in the steppe, the work of the right machine - I saw everything ...
I was puzzled.
- How did it happen with you? You drove all the warnings, you went straight to the tail of another train ...
The former first-class mechanic thought sadly and answered me quietly, as to himself:
“I’m used to seeing light, and I thought I saw it, but I saw it then only in my mind, in my imagination. In fact, I was blind, but I did not know that ... I didn’t believe in firecrackers either, although I heard them: I thought I had misheard. And when you gave the stop beeps and shouted to me, I saw a green signal ahead, I did not immediately guess.
Now I understood Maltsev, but I didn’t know why he wouldn’t tell the investigator about that - that, after he went blind, he saw the world in his imagination for a long time and believed in its reality. And I asked Alexander Vasilyevich about this.
“I told him,” Maltsev answered.
- What is he?
“That, he says, was your imagination; maybe you are imagining something even now, I don’t know. I, he says, need to establish facts, not your imagination or suspiciousness. Your imagination - whether it was or not - I cannot verify, it was only in your head; these are your words, and the crash, which almost happened, is an action. "
“He’s right,” I said.
“I’m right, I know myself,” the driver agreed. - And I am also right, not guilty. What will happen now?
“You’ll be in jail,” I told him.
Maltsev was sent to prison. I still drove as an assistant, but only with another driver - a cautious old man who braked the train another kilometer before the yellow traffic light, and when we approached it, the signal changed to green, and the old man again began to drag the train forward. It was not a job: I missed Maltsev.
In the winter I was in a regional town and visited my brother, a student living in a university dormitory. My brother told me in the middle of a conversation that they, at the university, have a Tesla installation in the physics laboratory for producing artificial lightning. A certain consideration occurred to me, uncertain and still unclear to myself.
Returning home, I considered my guess regarding the Tesla installation and decided that my idea was correct. I wrote a letter to the investigator who was in charge of the Maltsev case at one time, with a request to test the prisoner Maltsev for his exposure to electric discharges. If the susceptibility of Maltsev's psyche or his visual organs to the action of nearby sudden electric discharges is proved, then Maltsev's case must be reconsidered. I pointed out to the investigator where the Tesla installation is located and how to perform the experiment on a person.
The investigator did not answer me for a long time, but then he said that the regional prosecutor had agreed to carry out the expert examination I had proposed in the university physics laboratory.
A few days later the investigator summoned me. I came to him agitated, confident in advance that the Maltsev case was a happy solution.
The investigator greeted me, but was silent for a long time, slowly reading some paper with sad eyes; I was losing hope.
“You let your friend down,” the investigator said then.
- What? Is the verdict the same?
- No. We will free Maltsev. The order has already been given - perhaps Maltsev is already at home.
- Thank you. - I got to my feet in front of the investigator.
- And we will not thank you. You gave bad advice: Maltsev is blind again ...
I sat down on a chair in fatigue, my soul instantly burned out, and I wanted to drink.
“The experts, without warning, in the dark, conducted Maltsev under the Tesla installation,” the investigator told me. - The current was switched on, a lightning occurred, and a sharp blow was heard. Maltsev passed calmly, but now he again does not see the light - this was established objectively, by a forensic medical examination.
- Now he again sees the world only in his imagination ... You are his friend, help him.
- Maybe his sight will return to him again, - I expressed hope, - as it was then, after the locomotive ...
The investigator thought:
- Hardly ... Then there was the first injury, now the second. The wound was inflicted on the wounded place.
And, not holding back any longer, the investigator got up and began to walk around the room in excitement.
- It is my fault ... Why did I obey you and, like a fool, insisted on an examination! I risked a man, but he could not bear the risk.
“It’s not your fault, you didn’t risk anything,” I consoled the investigator. - Which is better - a free blind person or a sighted, but innocent prisoner?
“I didn’t know that I would have to prove a person's innocence through his misfortune,” said the investigator. - It's too expensive a price.
“Don't worry, Comrade Investigator. Here the facts acted within a person, and you were looking for them only outside. But you managed to understand your flaw and acted with Maltsev as a noble man. I respect you.
- Me too, - the investigator confessed. - You know, an assistant investigator could come out of you ...
- Thank you, but I'm busy, I'm the assistant driver on a courier train.
I left. I was not a friend of Maltsev, and he always treated me without attention and care. But I wanted to protect him from the grief of fate, I was bitter against the fatal forces, accidentally and indifferently destroying a person; I sensed a secret, elusive calculation of these forces in the fact that they were destroying Maltsev, and not me, say. I understood that in nature there is no such calculation in our human, mathematical sense, but I saw that there are facts proving the existence of disastrous circumstances hostile to human life, and these disastrous forces crush the chosen, elevated people. I decided not to give up, because I felt something in myself that could not be in the external forces of nature and in our fate - I felt my peculiarity as a person. And I became bitter and decided to resist, I myself did not yet know how to do it.
The next summer, I passed my exams for the rank of a machinist and began to ride on my own on a steam locomotive of the SU series, working on local passenger traffic. And almost always, when I brought a locomotive to the train, which was standing at the station platform, I saw Maltsev sitting on a painted bench. Leaning his hand on a cane placed between his legs, he turned his passionate, sensitive face with empty blind eyes towards the locomotive, and eagerly breathed in the smell of burning and lubricating oil, and attentively listened to the rhythmic work of the steam-air pump. I had nothing to console him with, and I left, but he stayed.
Summer went on; I worked on a steam locomotive and often saw Alexander Vasilyevich - not only at the station platform, but also met him on the street, when he walked slowly, feeling the road with his cane. He has grown haggard and aged lately; he lived in prosperity - he was given a pension, his wife worked, they had no children, but longing, lifeless fate devoured Alexander Vasilyevich, and his body grew thin from constant grief. I sometimes talked to him, but I saw that it was boring for him to talk about trifles and to be content with my kind consolation, that a blind person is also a fully-fledged, full-fledged person.
- Get out! - he said, after listening to my benevolent words.
But I, too, was an angry person, and when, according to custom, he once told me to leave, I said:
- Tomorrow at ten thirty I will lead the composition. If you sit still, I'll take you to the car.
Maltsev agreed:
- Okay. I will be meek. Give me something in my hands, let me hold the reverse; I will not twist it.
- You will not twist it! - I confirmed. “If you twist it, I’ll give you a piece of coal and I’ll never take it on the locomotive again.”
The blind man was silent; he so wanted to be on the train again that he resigned himself to me.
The next day I invited him from the painted bench to the locomotive and went down to meet him to help him get into the cabin.
When we moved forward, I put Alexander Vasilyevich in my driver's seat, put one hand on the reverse and the other on the brake, and put my hands on top of his hands. I moved my hands as it should, and his hands worked too. Maltsev sat silently and listened to me, enjoying the movement of the car, the wind in his face and work. He concentrated, forgot his grief of the blind man, and a meek joy illuminated the haggard face of this man, for whom the feeling of a machine was bliss.
In the opposite direction, we rode in a similar way: Maltsev sat in the mechanic's place, and I stood, bending over, next to him and held my hands on his arms. Maltsev had already gotten used to working in such a way that a light pressure on his hand was enough for me, and he accurately felt my demand. The former, perfect master of the machine sought to overcome his lack of vision and feel the world by other means in order to work and justify his life.
In calm areas, I completely moved away from Maltsev and looked ahead from the side of the assistant.
We were already on the way to Tolubeev; our next flight ended safely, and we went on time. But on the last stretch, a yellow traffic light shone towards us. I did not prematurely cut the speed and walked to the traffic light with open steam. Maltsev sat quietly, keeping his left hand on the reverse; I looked at my teacher with secret expectation ...
- Shut off the steam! - Maltsev told me. I said nothing, worried with all my heart.
Then Maltsev got up, reached out to the regulator and closed the steam.
“I see a yellow light,” he said, and pulled the brake lever toward him.
“Or maybe you just imagine again that you see the light! - I said to Maltsev.
He turned his face to me and began to cry. I went up to him and kissed him back:
- Drive the car to the end, Alexander Vasilievich: now you see the whole world!
He drove the car to Tolubeev without my help. After work, I went with Maltsev to his apartment, and we sat with him all evening and all night.
I was afraid to leave him alone, like my own son, without protection against the action of the sudden and hostile forces of our beautiful and furious world.
- And when I grow up, I will not go to school! - said Artyom to his mother, Evdokia Alekseevna. - Really, Mom?
“True, true,” said the mother. - Why should you go!
- Why should I go? There is nothing! Otherwise I'll go and you will miss me. Don't get better!
- Don't, - said the mother, - don't!
And when the summer passed and Artyom became seven years old, Evdokia Alekseevna took her son by the hand and led him to school. Artyom wanted to get away from his mother, but he could not take his hand out of her hand; the mother's hand was now firm, but before it was soft.
- Well! - said Artyom. - But I'll come home soon! Really soon?
- Soon, soon, - answered the mother. - Learn a little bit and go home.
- I'm a little bit, - agreed Artyom. - Don't miss me at home!
- I will not, son, I will not be bored.
- No, you are a little bored, - said Artyom. - It will be better for you, but what! And there is no need to remove toys from the corner: I will come and play right away, I will run home running.
- And I'll wait for you, - said the mother, - I'll bake pancakes for you today.
- Will you wait for me? - Artyom was delighted. - You can't wait! Eh, woe to you! Don't cry for me, don't be afraid and don't die, look, but wait for me!
- Oh, okay! Artyom's mother laughed. - I'll wait for you, my dear, maybe I won't die!
- You breathe and endure, then you will not die, - said Artyom. - Look, as I breathe, so do you.
The mother sighed, stopped and showed her son into the distance. There, at the end of the street, there was a new large chopped-up school - it had been built all summer - and behind the school a dark deciduous forest began. The school was still far from here; a long order of houses stretched to it - ten or eleven yards.
“Now go alone,” said the mother. - Get used to walking alone. Do you see the school?
- And then if! There she is!
- Well, go, go, Artyomushka, go alone. Obey the teacher there, she will be for you instead of me.
Artyom thought about it.
- No, she won't be for you, - Artyom said quietly, - she's a stranger.
- You will get used to it, Apollinaria Nikolaevna will be like your own. So go!
The mother kissed Artyom on the forehead, and he went further alone.
Walking far away, he looked back at his mother. Mother stood still and looked at him. Artyom wanted to cry for his mother and return to her, but he went forward again so that his mother would not be offended by him. And the mother also wanted to catch up with Artyom, take his hand and return home with him, but she only sighed and went home alone.
Soon Artyom turned around again to look at his mother, but she was no longer visible.
And he went alone again and wept. Here the gander stretched out his neck from behind the hedge, grunted and pinched Artyom's trouser leg with his beak, and at the same time grabbed the live skin on his leg.
Artyom dashed away and escaped from the gander. “These are terrible wild birds,” Artyom decided, “they live with the eagles.”
In another courtyard, a gate was opened. Artyom saw a shaggy animal with thorns sticking to it, the animal stood with its tail to Artyom, but still it was angry and saw him.
“Who is this? - thought Artyom. - A wolf, or what? Artyom looked back in the direction where his mother had gone - and if she could be seen there, otherwise this wolf would run there. Mother was not visible, she was already at home, it must be good, the wolf will not eat her. Suddenly the shaggy animal turned its head and silently bared its mouth with its teeth at Artyom. Artyom recognized the dog Zhuchka.
- Bug, is that you?
- Rrr! - answered the wolf-dog.
- Only touch! - said Artyom. - Just touch it! Do you know what will happen to you then? I'm going to school. There she can be seen!
“Mmm,” the Bug said quietly and wiggled her tail.
- Eh, even before school! - Artyom sighed and walked on.
Someone hit Artyom at once and painfully on the cheek, as if he had pierced it, and immediately went out back.
- Who else is this? - Artyom was frightened. - Why are you fighting, otherwise I am for you too ... I need to go to school. I am a student - you see!
He looked around, and there was no one, only the wind rustled with fallen leaves.
- Hidden? - said Artyom. - Show yourself only!
A fat beetle lay on the ground. Artyom picked it up, then put it on a burdock.
- You fell on me from the wind. Live now, live faster, otherwise winter will come.
Having said so, Artyom ran to school so as not to be late. At first he ran along the path near the fence, but from there some animal breathed a hot spirit on him and said: "Ffurfurchi!"
- Don't touch me: I have no time! - answered Artyom and ran out into the middle of the street.
Children were sitting in the yard of the school. Artyom did not know them, they came from another village, they must have studied for a long time and were all smart, because Artyom did not understand what they were saying.
- Do you know bold? Whoa! Said a boy from another village.
And two more said:
- Afanasy Petrovich showed us proboscis insects!
- And we have already passed them. We taught the birds to the guts!
- You are only to the guts, and we passed all the birds before the flight.
“But I don't know anything,” thought Artyom, “I only love my mother! I'll run home! "
The bell rang. The teacher Apollinaria Nikolaevna came out onto the porch of the school and said when the bell rang:
- Hello children! Come here, come to me.
All the guys went to school, only Artyom remained in the yard.
Apollinaria Nikolaevna approached him:
- What are you doing? Has it gone numb, or what?
- I want to go to my mother, - said Artyom and covered his face with his sleeve. - Take me quickly to the yard.
- No, no! - answered the teacher. - I'm your mom at school.
She took Artyom under her arms, lifted him into her arms and carried him.
Artyom gradually glanced at the teacher: see you, what she was - she was white-faced, kind, her eyes looked merrily at him, as if she wanted to play a game with him, like a little girl. And she smelled the same as her mother, warm bread and dry grass.
In the class, Apollinaria Nikolaevna wanted to put Artyom at the desk, but in fear he clung to her and did not get away with it. Apollinaria Nikolaevna sat down at the table and began to teach the children, and left Artyom on her lap.
- Heck you, what a fat drake sits on your knees! One boy said.
- I'm not fat! - answered Artyom. - The eagle bit me, I am wounded.
He got off the teacher's lap and sat down at the desk.
- Where? - asked the teacher. - Where is your wound? Show her, show her!
- But mulberries! - Artyom showed his leg where the gander pinched him.
The teacher looked at her leg.
- Will you live to the end of the lesson?
- I'll live, - promised Artyom.
Artyom did not listen to what the teacher said in the lesson. He looked out the window at a distant white cloud; it floated across the sky to where his mother lived in their native hut. Is she alive? Didn't she die of something - here grandmother Daria died at once in the spring, did not expect, did not guess. Or maybe their hut caught fire without him, because Artyom left home long ago, you never know what happens.
The teacher saw the boy's anxiety and asked him:
- And what are you, Fedotov Artyom, what are you thinking now? Why are not you listening to me?
- I'm afraid of fire, our house will burn down.
- Will not burn. At the collective farm, people are watching, they will put out the fire.
- Will they put out without me? - asked Artyom.
- They'll manage without you.
After school, Artyom ran home first.
“Wait, wait,” said Apollinaria Nikolaevna. - Come back, you're wounded.
And the guys said:
- Ek, what a disabled person, but he runs!
Artyom stopped at the door, the teacher went up to him, took his hand and led him with her. She lived in rooms at the school, only from a different porch. Apollinaria Nikolaevna's rooms smelled of flowers, crockery in the cupboard clinked softly, and everything was cleaned and cleaned well.
Apollinaria Nikolaevna put Artyom on a chair, washed his leg with warm water from a basin, and tied a red spot - a gander's pinch - with white gauze.
- And your mother will grieve! - said Apollinaria Nikolaevna. - That will grieve!
- Will not be! - answered Artyom. - She bakes pancakes!
- No, it will. Eh, will he say, why did Artyom go to school today? He did not learn anything there, but went to study, which means that he deceived my mother, which means that he does not love me, she will say and she will cry herself.
- And the truth! - Artyom was frightened.
- Truth. Let's study now.
- Just a little, - said Artyom.
“Okay, just a little bit,” the teacher agreed. - Well, come here, wounded.
She took him into her arms and carried him to class. Artyom was afraid to fall and clung to the teacher. Again he felt the same quiet and kind scent that he had felt near his mother, and the unfamiliar eyes that looked at him closely were not angry, as if they had been familiar for a long time. “Not scary,” thought Artyom.
In class, Apollinaria Nikolaevna wrote one word on the blackboard and said:
- This is how the word "mom" is spelled. - And ordered to write these letters in a notebook.
- And this is about my mother? - asked Artyom.
- About yours.
Then Artyom diligently began to draw the same letters in his notebook as on the blackboard. He tried, but his hand did not obey; he tried to persuade her how to write, and the hand walked by itself and scribbled, not like my mother. Having become angry, Artyom wrote again and again four letters depicting "mother", and the teacher did not take her joyful eyes off him.
- You're doing fine! - said Apollinaria Nikolaevna. She saw that now Artyom was able to write the letters well and evenly.
- Learn more! - asked Artyom. - What letter is it: like this - pens in barrels?
“This is F,” said Apollinaria Nikolaevna.
- And what about bold?
- And these are such thick letters.
- Feeding? - asked Artyom. - You will not teach any more - nothing?
- How so "nothing"? Look what you are! - said the teacher. - Write more!
She wrote on the board: "Homeland."
Artyom was about to rewrite the word in a notebook, but suddenly he froze and listened.
On the street someone said in a terrible mournful voice: "Oooh!", And then it was heard from somewhere, as if from under the ground: "Nn!"
And Artyom saw the black head of a bull in the window. The bull glanced at Artyom with one bloody eye and went to the school.
- Mama! - shouted Artyom.
The teacher grabbed the boy and hugged him to her chest.
- Do not be afraid! - she said. - Don't be afraid, my little one. I will not give you to him, he will not touch you.
- Ooh! The bull boomed.
Artyom put his hands around Apollinaria Nikolaevna's neck, and she put her hand on his head.
“I'll drive the bull away.
Artyom didn't believe it.
- Yes. You're not a mom!
- Mom! .. Now I'm your mom!
- Are you still a mom? Mom is there, and you are, you are here.
- I still. I'm still your mom!
An old man entered the classroom with a whip, dusty with earth; he bowed and said:
- Hello, hosts! But what if there is no kvask to drink or water? The road was dry ...
- And who are you, whose are you? - asked Apollinaria Nikolaevna.
“We are distant,” the old man replied. - We are moving forward, we are driving breeding bulls according to plan. Can you hear them humming inwardly? Fierce beasts!
- They can mutilate children, your bulls! - said Apollinaria Nikolaevna.
- What more! - the old man was offended. - Where am I? I will save the children!
The old shepherd got drunk from a tank of boiled water - he drank half a tank - he took out a red apple from his bag and gave it to Artyom. “Eat,” he said, “sharpen your teeth,” and left.
- And I also have mothers? - asked Artyom. - Far, far, somewhere?
- Yes, - answered the teacher. - You have a lot of them.
- Why a lot?
- And then, so that the bull does not gore you. Our entire Motherland is still your mother.
Soon Artyom went home, and the next morning he got ready for school early.
- Where are you going? It's still early, ”said the mother.
- Yes, and there is a teacher Apollinaria Nikolaevna! - answered Artyom.
- Well, what a teacher. She is kind.
“She must have missed her already,” said Artyom. - I have to go.
Mother leaned over to her son and kissed him on the road.
- Well, go, go little by little. Learn there and grow big.
A gray steppe cow of the Cherkasy breed lived alone in a barn. This shed, made of planks painted on the outside, stood in the small yard of the railway track watchman. In the barn, next to firewood, hay, millet straw and obsolete household things - a chest without a lid, a burnt out samovar pipe, rags, a chair without legs - there was a place for a cow to sleep over and for her life in long winters.
Day and evening, the boy Vasya Rubtsov, the owner's son, came to visit her and stroked her on the fur near her head. Today he also came.
“Cow, cow,” he said, because the cow did not have its own name, and he called her, as it was written in the book for reading. - You're a cow! .. Don't be bored, your son will recover, his father will bring him back now.
The cow had a calf - a bull; yesterday he choked on something, and saliva and bile began to flow from his mouth. Father was afraid that the calf would fall, and took him to the station today to show it to the veterinarian.
The cow looked sideways at the boy and was silent, chewing on a long-withered blade of grass, tortured by death. She always recognized the boy, he loved her. He liked everything in the cow that was in it - kind warm eyes, circled in dark circles, as if the cow was constantly tired or thoughtful, horns, forehead and her large thin body, which was so because the cow did not collect its strength for herself into fat and meat, and gave it to milk and work. The boy still looked at the tender, calm udder with small dry nipples, from where he was feeding on milk, and touched a strong short chest and protrusions of strong bones in front.
Looking a little at the boy, the cow bent its head and took from the trough with its non-greedy mouth a few blades of grass. She had no time to look to the side or to rest for a long time, she had to chew incessantly, because milk was born in her also incessantly, and the food was thin, monotonous, and the cow had to work with her for a long time to feed herself.
Vasya left the barn. It was autumn in the yard. Around the house of the waykeeper lay flat, empty fields, which had grown old and noisy over the summer and were now mown, decayed and dull.
It was now evening twilight; the sky, covered with a cool gray pillowcase, was already surrounded by darkness; the wind that had been stirring the awns of the mown crops and the bare bushes that had died for the winter all day now settled down in the quiet, low places of the earth and only barely creaked with a weather vane on the chimney, beginning the song of autumn.
The single-track line of the railway ran not far from the house, near the front garden, in which at that time everything had already withered and wilted - both grass and flowers. Vasya was wary of going into the front garden fence: it seemed to him now a graveyard of plants that he planted and brought to life in the spring.
Mother lit a lamp in the house and put the signal light outside on the bench.
- Soon the four hundred and sixth will go, - she said to her son, - you see him off. You can't see your father ... Have you gone on a spree?
Father had gone with the calf to the station, seven kilometers away, in the morning; He probably handed over the calf to the veterinarian, and he himself sits at the station meeting, either drinks beer in the buffet, or went to a consultation on the technical minimum. Or maybe the queue at the veterinary point is big and the father is waiting. Vasya took the lantern and sat down on the wooden crossbar at the crossing. The train was not yet heard, and the boy was upset; he had no time to sit here and see the trains off: it was time for him to prepare his lessons for tomorrow and go to bed, otherwise in the morning he had to get up early. He went to a seven-year collective farm five kilometers from home and studied there in the fourth grade.
Vasya loved to go to school, because, listening to the teacher and reading books, he imagined in his mind the whole world, which he did not yet know, which was far from him. The Nile, Egypt, Spain and the Far East, the great rivers - the Mississippi, the Yenisei, the quiet Don and the Amazon, the Aral Sea, Moscow, Mount Ararat, the Island of Solitude in the Arctic Ocean - all this worried Vasya and attracted him. It seemed to him that all countries and people have long been waiting for him to grow up and come to them. But he had not yet had time to go anywhere: he was born here, where he lived now, but was only on the collective farm in which the school was located, and at the station. Therefore, with anxiety and joy, he peered into the faces of people looking out of the windows of passenger trains - who they were and what they think - but the trains went quickly, and people passed in them unrecognized by a boy at the crossing. In addition, there were few trains, only two pairs a day, and three of them passed at night.
Once, thanks to the quiet running of the train, Vasya clearly saw the face of a young, pensive man. He looked through the open window into the steppe, at an unfamiliar place on the horizon and smoked his pipe. Seeing a boy standing at the crossing with a raised green flag, he smiled at him and clearly said: "Goodbye, man!" - and also waved his hand in memory. “Goodbye,” Vasya answered to himself, “I'll grow up, I'll see you! You live and wait on me, do not die! " And then for a long time the boy remembered this pensive man who had left in the carriage who knows where; he was probably a parachutist, an artist, or an order bearer, or even better, so Vasya thought about him. But soon the memory of a man who once passed their house was forgotten in the boy's heart, because he had to live on and think and feel differently.
Far away - in the empty night of autumn fields - a steam locomotive sang. Vasya stepped closer to the line and raised a clear signal of free passage high above his head. He listened for a while to the growing rumble of a running train and then turned to his house. In their yard, a cow moaned plaintively. She was waiting all the time for her son - a calf, but he did not come. “Where is this father staggering so long! - Vasya thought with displeasure. - Our cow is already crying! It's night, it's dark, but my father's still gone.
The locomotive reached the crossing and, turning the wheels heavily, breathing with all its fire into the darkness, passed a lonely man with a lantern in his hand. The mechanic did not even look at the boy - leaning far out of the window, he watched the car: steam broke through the packing in the piston rod oil seal and with each stroke of the piston burst out. Vasya noticed this too. Soon there will be a long ascent, and it will be difficult for a car with a leak in the cylinder to pull the train. The boy knew why the steam engine works, he read about it in a physics textbook, and if it had not been written about it there, he would still have learned about it, what it is. He was tormented if he saw any object or substance and did not understand why they live inside themselves and act. Therefore, he did not take offense at the driver when he drove by and did not look at his lamp; the driver had to take care of the car, the locomotive can become at night on a long rise, and then it will be difficult for him to move the train forward; when stopping, the carriages will move back a little, the train will become stretched, and it can be broken if you take it strongly from its place, but you cannot move it weakly at all.
Heavy four-axle cars went past Vasya; their spring springs were compressed, and the boy realized that there was a heavy, expensive load in the cars. Then open platforms drove off: cars were parked on them, unknown cars covered with tarpaulins, coal was poured, cabbage heads lay in a mountain, after cabbage there were new rails and closed wagons in which livestock were transported again began. Vasya shone a lantern on the wheels and axle boxes of the cars - was there anything wrong there, but everything was fine there. An unknown unknown calf screamed from one carriage with livestock, and then a cow, longing for her son, answered her from the barn in a drawn-out, crying voice.
The last cars passed Vasya quite quietly. You could hear how the locomotive in the head of the train was beating in hard work, its wheels skidded and the train did not stretch. Vasya went with a lantern to the locomotive, because it was difficult for the car, and he wanted to be near her, as if by this he could share her fate.
The locomotive worked with such tension that pieces of coal flew out of its chimney and the echoing breathing interior of the boiler was heard. The wheels of the car turned slowly, and the mechanic watched them from the window of the booth. Ahead of the locomotive, an assistant driver was walking along the path. He shovel sand from the ballast layer and poured it onto the rails so that the car would not slip. The light from the front locomotive lanterns illuminated a black, oil-smeared, tired man. Vasya put his flashlight on the ground and went to the ballast to the driver's assistant working with a shovel.
- Give, I will, - said Vasya. - Go and help the locomotive. And then he is about to stop.
- Can you? - asked the assistant, looking at the boy with large bright eyes from his deep dark face. - Try it! Just be careful, look back at the car!
The shovel was large and heavy for Vasya. He gave it back to the assistant.
- I'll be hands, it's easier.
Vasya bent down, scooped up sand in handfuls and quickly poured it in a strip onto the rail head.
- Sprinkle on both rails, - the assistant pointed out to him and ran to the locomotive.
Vasya began to pour in turns, now on one rail, then on another. The locomotive was heavy, slowly walking after the boy, grinding sand with steel wheels. Coal fumes and moisture from the cooled steam fell on Vasya from above, but it was interesting for him to work, he felt more important than a steam locomotive, because the steam locomotive itself followed him and only thanks to him did not slip and did not stop.
If Vasya forgot himself in the zeal of work and the locomotive approached him almost closely, the driver gave a short beep and shouted from the car: "Hey, look around! .. The rash is thicker, even more!"
Vasya was careful about the car and worked in silence. But then he got angry that they were shouting at him and ordering; he ran out of the way and shouted to the driver himself:
- Why did you go without sand? Or don't you know! ..
- He's all gone, - answered the driver. - Our dishes are too small for him.
- Add an additional one, - Vasya pointed out, walking next to the locomotive. - Old iron can be bent and made. You will order a roofer.
The machinist looked at this boy, but in the darkness he did not see him well. Vasya was dressed properly and shod in shoes, had a small face and did not take his eyes off the car. The same boy grew up near the driver's house.
- And your steam goes where you don't need it; from the cylinder, from the boiler blowing from the side, - said Vasya. - Only in vain is the power lost in the holes.
- Oh, you! - said the driver. - And you sit down, lead the train, and I'll go next.
- Come on! - Vasya agreed with delight.
The locomotive at once, at full speed, turned its wheels in place, like a prisoner rushing to freedom, even the rails under it rattled far along the line.
Vasya jumped out again in front of the locomotive and began to throw sand on the rails, under the front runners of the car. “If I didn't have my son, I would have adopted this one,” the driver muttered, taming the skidding of the locomotive. - He is already a full man from an early age, and he still has everything ahead of him ... What the hell: if the brakes are still kept somewhere in the tail, and the brigade is dozing, like at a resort. Well, I'll shake her on the slope. "
The driver gave two long beeps - to release the brakes in the train, if it is clamped somewhere.
Vasya looked around and left the path.
- What are you? The driver shouted to him.
- Nothing, - Vasya answered. - Now it won't be cool, the locomotive will go without me, by itself, and then downhill ...
“Anything is possible,” said the driver from above. - Here, take it! - And he threw two large apples to the boy.
Vasya picked up a treat from the ground.
- Wait, don't eat! The driver said to him. - You will go back, look under the cars and listen, please: are the brakes clamped where. And then go out to the bump, signal me with your flashlight - you know how?
- I know all the signals, - Vasya answered and clung to the ladder of the locomotive to ride. Then he bent down and looked somewhere under the locomotive.
- Squeezed! He shouted.
- Where? - asked the driver.
- You have it squeezed - the cart is under the tender! There, the wheels are spinning quietly, but on the other cart, faster!
The machinist scolded himself, his assistant and his whole life, and Vasya jumped off the gangplank and went home.
In the distance, his lantern shone on the ground. Just in case, Vasya listened to how the running gears of the cars work, but nowhere did he hear the brake pads rubbing and grinding.
The train passed, and the boy turned to the place where his lantern was. The light from him suddenly rose into the air, a man took the lantern in his hands. Vasya ran there and saw his father.
- And where is our heifer? The boy asked his father. - He died?
“No, he's recovered,” his father replied. - I sold it for slaughter, they gave me a good price. Why do we need a bull!
- He's still small, - said Vasya.
- The little one is more expensive, his meat is more tender, - explained the father. Vasya rearranged the glass in the lantern, replaced the white with green and several times slowly raised the signal above his head and lowered it downward, turning its light towards the departed train: let him go on, the wheels under the cars go freely, they are not jammed anywhere.
It became quiet. Sadly and meekly, a cow murmured in the yard. She did not sleep while waiting for her son.
“Go home alone,” Father said to Vasya, “and I'll go around our area.
- And the instrument? - Vasya reminded.
- I just; I'll just see where the crutches have been raised, but I won't work today, ”my father said quietly. - My soul hurts like a calf: they raised and raised him, they got used to him ... I would have known that I would feel sorry for him, I would not sell ...
And the father walked along the line with a lantern, turning his head first to the right and then to the left, looking around the path.
The cow whined again for a long time when Vasya opened the gate to the yard and the cow heard the man.
Vasya entered the barn and looked closely at the cow, getting used to the darkness with his eyes. The cow was eating nothing now; she silently and rarely breathed, and a heavy, difficult grief languished in her, which was hopeless and could only increase, because she did not know how to console her grief with neither word, nor consciousness, nor friend, nor entertainment, as a person can do ... Vasya stroked and caressed the cow for a long time, but she remained motionless and indifferent: now she needed only one of her son - a calf, and nothing could replace him - neither man, nor grass, nor sun. The cow did not understand that one could forget one happiness, find another and live again without suffering any more. Her vague mind could not help her to be deceived: what once entered her heart or her feeling could not be suppressed or forgotten there.
And the cow moaned dejectedly, because she was completely submissive to life, nature and her need for a son, who had not yet grown up so that she could leave him, and now she was hot and painful inside, she looked into the darkness with large, full eyes and could not weep with them to weaken ourselves and our grief.
In the morning Vasya left early for school, and his father began to prepare a small one-plow plow for work. My father wanted to plow some land on the cow in the right-of-way so that he could sow millet there in the spring.
Returning from school, Vasya saw that his father was plowing on a cow, but he smelled little. The cow obediently dragged the plow and, bowing its head, dripped saliva onto the ground. Vasya and his father worked on their cow before; she knew how to plow and was accustomed and patient to walk in a yoke.
Towards evening, the father unharnessed the cow and let her graze on the stubble in the old field. Vasya sat at the table in the house, did his homework and from time to time looked out the window - he saw his cow. She stood in the near field, did not graze and did nothing.
Evening came the same as yesterday, gloomy and empty, and the weather vane creaked on the roof, as if singing a long song of autumn. Staring into the darkening field, the cow was waiting for her son; now she did not hum at him and did not call him, she endured and did not understand.
After doing his homework, Vasya took a loaf of bread, sprinkled it with salt and carried it to the cow. The cow did not eat bread and remained as indifferent as she was. Vasya stood beside her, and then hugged the cow from below by the neck, so that she knew that he understood and loved her. But the cow jerked its neck sharply, threw the boy away from itself and, crying out in a different throaty voice, ran into the field. Having run away far, the cow suddenly turned back and, now jumping, now falling with its front legs and pressing its head to the ground, began to approach Vasya, who was waiting for her in the same place.
The cow ran past the boy, past the yard and disappeared into the evening field, and from there again Vasya heard her strange throaty voice.
Mother, returning from the collective farm cooperative, father and Vasya walked in different directions through the surrounding fields until midnight and called their cow, but the cow did not answer them, she was not there. After supper, the mother began to cry that their nurse and the worker had disappeared, and the father began to think that he would have to, apparently, write an application to the mutual assistance fund and to the Dorprofsozh in order to issue a loan for acquiring a new cow.
In the morning Vasya woke up first, there was still a gray light in the windows. He heard that near the house someone was breathing and stirring in silence. He looked out the window and saw a cow; she stood at the gate and waited to be admitted home ...
Since then, the cow, although she lived and worked, when she had to plow or go to the collective farm for flour, her milk disappeared altogether, and she became gloomy and dull. Vasya watered her himself, gave her food and cleaned, but the cow did not respond to his care, she did not care what they did to her.
In the middle of the day, the cow was released into the field, so that she would resemble the wild and so that she felt better. But the cow walked little; she stood still for a long time, then walked a little and again stopped, forgetting to walk. Once she went to the line and quietly walked along the sleepers, then Vasya's father saw her, cut her short and brought her to the side. And before the cow was timid, sensitive and never went out on the line herself. Therefore, Vasya began to fear that the cow could be killed by the train or she would die herself, and while sitting at school, he kept thinking about her, and ran home from school.
And once, when there were the shortest days and it was already getting dark, Vasya, returning from school, saw that a freight train was standing in front of their house. Alarmed, he immediately ran to the locomotive.
A familiar machinist whom Vasya had recently helped to lead the train, and Vasya's father were pulling out a killed cow from the tender. Vasya sat down on the ground and froze from the grief of the first imminent death.
- I gave her whistles for ten minutes, - the driver said to Vasya's father. - Is she deaf or bad, eh? The entire train had to be put on emergency braking, and that did not have time.
“She’s not deaf, she’s naughty,” said my father. - I dozed off, probably on the tracks.
- No, she was running from the locomotive, but quietly and to the side did not think to turn, - answered the driver. “I thought she would figure it out.
Together with the assistant and the fireman, the four of them, they dragged the mutilated body of the cow out of the tender and dumped all the beef out into a dry ditch near the path.
“It's nothing, fresh,” said the driver. - Will you pickle your meat or sell it?
“I’ll have to sell it,” my father decided. - You have to collect money for another cow, it's difficult without a cow.
“You can't live without her,” the driver agreed. - Collect money and buy, I'll give you some money too. I don’t have much, but I can find a little. I will receive an award soon.
- Why are you going to give me money? - Vasya's father was surprised. - I'm not your kin, no one ... Yes, I myself will manage: trade union, cash desk, service, you know - from there, from here ...
“Well, I’ll add,” the driver insisted. - Your son helped me, and I will help you. There he is sitting. Hello! - the mechanic smiled.
- Hello, - Vasya answered him.
“I have never crushed anyone in my life,” the driver said, “once — a dog… It’s hard for me myself if I don’t repay you for the cow.”
- And for what will you receive the award? - Vasya asked. - You don't drive well.
- Now it's a little better, - the driver laughed. - I learned!
- Have you put another bowl for the sand? - Vasya asked.
- We put it: a small sandbox was changed to a large one! - answered the driver.
“They guessed it by force,” Vasya said angrily.
Here the chief conductor came and gave the driver a paper that he wrote about the reason for the train stopping on the stretch.
The next day my father sold the whole cow carcass to the rural district cooperative; someone else's carriage arrived and took her. Vasya and his father went with this cart. Father wanted to get money for meat, and Vasya was thinking of buying himself books for reading in the store. They spent the night in the area and spent another half day there shopping, and after lunch they went to the yard.
They had to go through the collective farm where Vasya was a seven-year student. It was already dark when the father and son got to the collective farm, so Vasya did not go home, but stayed overnight at the school watchman, so as not to go back early tomorrow and not get stuck in vain. One father went home.
At school, in the morning, testing began for the first quarter. The students were asked to write an essay from their own lives.
Vasya wrote in a notebook: “We had a cow. When she lived, her mother, father and I ate milk from her. Then she gave birth to a son - a calf, and he also ate milk from her, the three of us and he was the fourth, but everyone had enough. The cow was still plowing and carrying luggage. Then her son was sold for meat. The cow began to suffer, but soon died from the train. And they ate her too, because she is beef. The cow gave us everything, that is, milk, son, meat, skin, entrails and bones, she was kind. I remember our cow and will not forget. "
Vasya returned to the courtyard at dusk. The father was already at home, he had just come from the line; he showed his mother a hundred rubles, two pieces of paper, which the driver in a tobacco pouch had thrown to him from the locomotive.
Hunger and hardship enhanced the beauty and fragrance of a flower that grew in a barren wasteland. The wasteland was fertilized, the children of the flower grew on it, but the most beautiful again was the flower that grew among the stones.
There was a small flower in the world. He grew up on dry clay wasteland, among old, gray stones. His life began with a seed, which the wind brought to the wasteland. At night, the flower collected dew on its leaves to drink, and during the day it caught the particles of earth brought by the wind - this was its food. It was difficult for the flower, but he wanted to live and with patience overcame "his pain from hunger and fatigue."
In the summer, the flower opened its yellow corolla of fragrant petals and became like a star. Once the girl Dasha passed by the wasteland. She lived in a pioneer camp and carried a letter to her mother, whom she missed very much. The scent of a flower came to her, and the girl thought that he also missed her mother, only instead of tears he exuded a fragrance. Dasha examined the wasteland and realized how hard it was for the flower. The next day, she brought the pioneers to the wasteland, who fertilized the land.
A year later, Dasha came to the wasteland and saw that it had turned into a blooming meadow, strewn with flowers - the children of the first flower. The new flowers, also beautiful and fragrant, were a little worse than the unknown flower, and Dasha felt sad. And then she saw a flower that grew "from the middle of the embarrassed stones." He was more beautiful and stronger than his father, because he grew up in stone. “It seemed to Dasha that the flower was reaching out to her, that he was calling her to him in the silent voice of his fragrance.”
There was a small flower in the world. No one knew that he was on earth. He grew up alone in a vacant lot; the cows and goats did not go there, and the children from the pioneer camp never played there. Grass did not grow in the wasteland, but only old gray stones lay, and between them was dry dead clay. Only one wind blew through the wasteland; like a grandfather-sower, the wind carried seeds and sowed them everywhere - both in the black damp earth and on the bare stone wasteland. In the good black earth, flowers and herbs were born from seeds, and in stone and clay, the seeds died.
And once one seed fell from the wind, and it nestled in a hole between the stone and the clay. This seed languished for a long time, and then it was saturated with dew, disintegrated, released the thin hairs of the root, dug into the stone and clay and began to grow.
So that little flower began to live in the world. He had nothing to eat in stone and clay; raindrops that fell from the sky descended on the top of the earth and did not penetrate to its root, but the flower kept living and living and growing little by little higher. He raised the leaves against the wind, and the wind died down near the flower; specks of dust fell from the wind onto the clay, which the wind brought from the black fat earth; and in those dust particles there was food for the flower, but the dust particles were dry. To moisten them, the flower guarded the dew all night and collected it drop by drop on its leaves. And when the leaves were heavy with dew, the flower lowered them, and the dew fell down; it moistened the black dust particles that the wind brought, and ate away the dead clay.
During the day the flower was guarded by the wind, and at night it was dew. He worked day and night to live and not die. He grew his leaves large so that they could stop the wind and collect dew. However, it was difficult for a flower to eat from some dust particles that fell out of the wind, and still collect dew for them. But he needed life and with patience overcame his pain from hunger and fatigue. Only once a day did the flower rejoice; when the first ray of the morning sun touched its weary leaves.
If the wind did not come to the wasteland for a long time, then the little flower became bad, and it no longer had enough strength to live and grow. The flower, however, did not want to live sadly; therefore, when he was very sad, he dozed off. Yet he constantly tried to grow, even if bare stone and dry clay gnawed at his roots. At such a time, its leaves could not be saturated with full strength and turn green: one vein they had blue, the other red, the third blue or gold. This happened because the flower lacked food, and its torment was indicated in the leaves by different colors. The flower itself, however, did not know this: after all, he was blind and did not see himself as he was.
In the middle of summer, the flower spreads its crown at the top. Before that, it looked like grass, and now it has become a real flower. His corolla was composed of petals of a simple light color, clear and strong, like a star. And, like a star, he shone with a living flickering fire, and he could be seen even on a dark night. And when the wind came to the wasteland, it always touched the flower and carried its scent with it.
And one morning the girl Dasha was walking past that wasteland. She lived with her friends in a pioneer camp, and this morning she woke up and missed her mother. She wrote a letter to her mother and took the letter to the station so that it would arrive as soon as possible. On the way, Dasha kissed the envelope with the letter and envied him that he would see her mother sooner than she did.
At the edge of the wasteland, Dasha felt a fragrance. She looked around. There were no flowers nearby, only small grass grew along the path, and the wasteland was completely bare; but the wind came from the wasteland and brought from there a quiet smell, like the calling voice of a small unknown life.
Dasha remembered a fairy tale that her mother had told her for a long time. The mother spoke of a flower that was still sad for its mother - a rose, but he could not cry, and only in the fragrance did his sadness pass. "Maybe this flower misses its mother there, like me," thought Dasha.
She went to the wasteland and saw that little flower near the stone. Dasha has never seen such a flower - not in a field, not in a forest, not in a book in a picture, not in a botanical garden, anywhere. She sat down on the ground near the flower and asked him: - Why are you like this? “I don’t know,” the flower replied. - And why are you different from others?
The flower again did not know what to say. But for the first time he heard the voice of a man so close, for the first time someone looked at him, and he did not want to offend Dasha with silence.
Because it's difficult for me, - answered the flower.
What is your name? - Dasha asked.
Nobody calls me, - said the little flower, - I live alone.
Dasha looked around in the wasteland. - Here is a stone, here is clay! - she said. - How do you live alone, how did you grow out of clay and did not die, little like that?
I don't know, - answered the flower.
Dasha bent down to him and kissed him on the luminous head. The next day, all the pioneers came to visit the little flower. Dasha brought them, but long before reaching the vacant lot, she told everyone to breathe and said: - Hear how good it smells. This is how he breathes.
The pioneers stood around the little flower for a long time and admired it like a hero. Then they walked around the entire wasteland, measured it with their steps and counted how many wheelbarrows with manure and ash need to be brought to fertilize the dead clay. They wanted the land to become good in the wasteland. Then the small flower, unknown by name, will rest, and from its seeds beautiful children will grow and not die, the best flowers shining with light, which are not found anywhere else.
The pioneers worked for four days, fertilizing the land in the wasteland. And after that they went to travel to other fields and forests and never came back to the wasteland. Only Dasha came once to say goodbye to a small flower. Summer was already over, the pioneers had to go home, and they left.
And the next summer, Dasha again came to the same pioneer camp. Throughout the long winter, she remembered a small flower, unknown by name. And she immediately went to the wasteland to visit him. Dasha saw that the wasteland was now different, it was now overgrown with herbs and flowers, and birds and butterflies were flying over it. There was a fragrance from the flowers, the same as from that little flower-worker. However, the last year's flower that lived between the stone and the clay was gone. He must have died last fall. The new flowers were nice too; they were only slightly worse than that first flower. And Dasha felt sad that there was no previous flower. She walked back and suddenly stopped. Between two close stones a new flower grew - the same exactly as that old color, only a little better than it and even more beautiful. This flower grew from the middle of the embarrassed stones; he was alive and patient, like his father, and even stronger than his father, because he lived in stone. It seemed to Dasha that the flower was reaching out to her, that he was calling her to him in the silent voice of his fragrance.
A.P. Platonov. "Unknown flower"
1.O.N.U.
2. Checking d / z
3. Updating knowledge
Why is the story subtitled Fairy Tale? (There are both fabulous and real). - What is in the story a fairy tale, and what is true? (A fairy tale is when a flower and a girl talk, and reality is everything else).
In the article of the textbook, another name for the genre is parable.
Does anyone know what this genre is? What dictionary will we look for? (Working with the dictionary: "Moral teaching, or moral commandment"). And you can also say "moral lesson".
4. Work on the topic of the lesson
Who would you call the main character of the tale? (This is a flower). Where is it reflected? (This is reflected in the title).
Let's turn to the beginning of the tale. Read the first 2 phrases: “There was a small flower in the world. No one knew that he was on earth. " Every detail, every word counts here.
What feeling are these lines permeated with? (Sadness, sadness, longing, aching loneliness).
Can we find keywords in these two sentences that will help us understand the mood of the author? (Small - nobody - on earth). These are the keywords of the first lines. What kind of picture would you paint for these keywords? (Verbal drawing).
- (What adjective would you like to add to the word earth? (Small flower - huge earth). Small flower on a huge Earth. Earth - Universe - Space. The concepts of "time" and "space" will appear all the time in the story.
A lonely flower in a vast space or a lonely flower in a vast universe). Please note: the concepts of "time" and "space" will appear all the time in the story.
Let's remember what the flower says to the girl in response to the most common question: "What is your name?" ("Nobody calls me, I live alone"). He reinterprets the verb plural form "call" into the singular form "no one calls." That's where this nagging feeling of pity for a lonely living being comes from.
Platonov's world is a world of universal orphanhood and disunity. Lonely people, especially children, lonely plants and animals. "The world seems to be broken into pieces" ("Aphrodite").
And then the girl Dasha appears in the fairy tale. Why were the feelings of the flower so close and understandable to Dasha? (“She lived with her friends in a pioneer camp, and this morning she woke up and missed her mother.” The girl felt especially acutely the orphanhood of the flower, because at that moment she was at that moment separated from her mother and felt lonely and abandoned.
Let's remember how the children helped the flower? Read in the text. (Work with text).
Pay attention: it was the children who supported the small and lonely flower in difficult times, that is, it is the children who are given the right to change the imperfection of the world. Why? (Children are kind, not bitter, not corrupted, pure; therefore, they feel especially acutely the general orphanhood).
Platonov even wrote: "Children are the saviors of the Universe."
We turn to the text. How does Platonov describe a blossoming flower? ("His corolla was composed of petals of a simple and light color, clear and strong, like a star. And, like a star, he shone with a living flickering fire, and he could be seen even on a dark night."
What does the flower compare to? (With a star).
This comparison is not accidental. In his article "On Love" Platonov writes: "Man and the Universe are one, and man is the same force that beats and breathes in the stars and grass."
How do you understand the meaning of these words? (Man, nature, the entire Universe are a single whole). And if there is disorder in the Universe (And this is exactly so. What is in the story a symbol of the disintegrated Universe? (Wasteland), what can save the disintegrated Universe, put an end to the general orphanhood?
Seems to be a tricky question. But let's think, what did the children do with the wasteland? (They transformed it with their labor.)
So, the first key word is labor.
Why did they do it? (They regretted and loved the flower).
The second key word is love. So what will save the Universe, according to Platonov? (Love and work).
Formulate the writer's first cherished idea. (If you have any difficulties, you can find it in the ready-made hint card "The cherished ideas of A. P. Platonov."
Note in the notebook:
The cherished ideas of Platonov.
Only love and work can unite the disintegrated Universe.
And what is needed to overcome evil? One girl could do it? (No).
Formulate the second cherished idea of \u200b\u200bthe writer.
Note in the notebook:
To overcome evil, people must unite.
What kind of people can defeat evil? In Platonov's story, who is this? (Children). What kind of hearts do they have? (Kind).
Formulate the third cherished idea of \u200b\u200bthe writer.
Note in the notebook:
Against the hostile forces of the world, people need to fight with pure, like children, thoughts and a kind heart.
Tell me, what was the life of a flower? (Difficult). Why? (Because he constantly resists such hostile forces as hunger, pain, fatigue, that is, he constantly works).
The concept of labor occupies an important place in the tale. It is one of the key ones. The text contains many words of the same root.
And besides physical strength, what else is needed to overcome all difficulties? (Strength of mind).
Formulate the fourth cherished idea of \u200b\u200bthe writer.
Note in the notebook:
To cope with evil, you need to have tremendous fortitude and work hard.
Let's reread the last two paragraphs. At the end of the tale, the flower dies. Can we say that he wasted his life? (No). Why? (He found a continuation in his descendant, who, with hard work and patience, will pave the way for other generations, even stronger and more beautiful).
Generalization. What dream did Platonov express in his fairy tale? (In the tale of an unknown flower, Platonov expressed his cherished dream of a perfect future for humanity).
5. Initial verification of understanding and correction of the assimilation of new material by students.
So what should this future be based on? What is the foundation of this future? We will be laying bricks in the foundation of our future, and for this, look in your notes and find the keyword in each line. (Work in pairs).
Love, work, unity, goodness, fortitude.
There is one more brick left in the foundation of our future.
Let's reason. Thanks to whom the flower-son grew more beautiful? (Thanks to the flower-father).
This is the case among people. It's great if children grow up smarter, more beautiful, better than their parents. So, who should the people of the future not forget about? (About parents, about ancestors).
What kind of brick is it? What will help us not to forget about our parents and ancestors? (Memory). In a perfect society, the memory of ancestors should be sacred.
Such values \u200b\u200bwere bequeathed by Platonov not only to his daughter, but to all readers.
6. Consolidation of knowledge
And now let's return to the concepts of "time" and "space", which were discussed at the beginning of the lesson.
The flower had its own space - a wasteland. Was the flower happy? (No).
Why? (He was lonely.)
What made him happy? (Children came "with good" and saved the flower).
So, what should be the space of a person for him to feel happy? (Kind).
Is it clear from the story at what time the action takes place in it? (No, the duration is indefinite.)
Is it important? (No, why? (Because the happiness of a flower does not depend on the time in which it lives?)
Guys, who was Platonov thinking about when he wrote his story, about a flower or about a person? (About a human).
Man, just like this flower, lives in time and space. Is it possible to say what is more important for life: time, space or the person himself? (The person himself is more important).
And does any person remain in time (i.e., in human memory) (No).
And what kind of person? (Which does something useful for its time and space).
Conclusion. A person like A.P. Platonov, who did a lot for his time, passed through time thanks to his creativity and will not disappear in the abyss of space (that is, in the Universe).
7. Summing up. Reflection
So what moral lesson did you learn from the writer today?
8. D / s Answer in writing the question: "What did the fairy tale teach me?"