Read bitter stories for children online. Maxim Gorky - Russian fairy tales

Alexey Peshkov, better known as the writer Maxim Gorky, is a significant figure for Russian and Soviet literature. He was nominated five times for the Nobel Prize, was the most published Soviet author throughout the existence of the USSR and was considered on a par with Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin and Leo Tolstoy the main creator of domestic literary art.

Maksim Gorky. Photo from www.detlib-tag.ru

Alexey Peshkov - the future Maxim Gorky was born in the town of Kanavino, which at that time was located in the Nizhny Novgorod province, and now is one of the districts of Nizhny Novgorod. His father, Maxim Peshkov, was a carpenter, and in the last years of his life he ran a steamship office. Mother Varvara Vasilyevna died of consumption, so Alyosha Peshkov's parents were replaced by grandmother Akulina Ivanovna. From the age of 11, the boy was forced to start working: Maxim Gorky was a messenger at the store, a barmaid on a steamer, an assistant baker and an icon painter. The biography of Maxim Gorky is reflected by him personally in the stories "Childhood", "In People" and "My Universities".

After an unsuccessful attempt to become a student at Kazan University and an arrest due to his connection with a Marxist circle, the future writer became a watchman on the railway. And at the age of 23, the young man sets off to wander around the country and managed to get on foot to the Caucasus. It was during this journey that Maxim Gorky briefly wrote down his thoughts, which would later be the basis for his future works. By the way, the first stories of Maxim Gorky also began to be published around that time.

Having already become a famous writer, Alexei Peshkov leaves for the United States, then moves to Italy. This happened not at all because of problems with the authorities, as some sources sometimes present, but because of changes in family life. Although abroad, Gorky continues to write revolutionary books. He returned to Russia in 1913, settled in St. Petersburg and began working for various publishing houses.

The first of the published stories by Maxim Gorky was the famous "Makar Chudra", which was published in 1892. And the fame of the writer was brought by the two-volume Essays and Stories. It is interesting that the circulation of these volumes was almost three times higher than was usually accepted in those years. Of the most popular works of that period, it is worth noting the stories "Old Woman Izergil", "Former People", "Chelkash", "Twenty-six and One", as well as the poem "Song of the Falcon". Another poem "Song of the Petrel" became a textbook. Maxim Gorky devoted a lot of time to children's literature. He wrote a number of fairy tales, for example, "Sparrow", "Samovar", "Tales of Italy", published the first special children's magazine in the Soviet Union and organized holidays for children from poor families.

The plays “At the Bottom”, “Petty Bourgeois” and “Egor Bulychov and Others” by Maxim Gorky are very important for understanding the work of the writer, in which he reveals the talent of the playwright and shows how he sees the life around him. The stories "Childhood" and "In People", the social novels "Mother" and "The Artamonov Case" are of great cultural significance for Russian literature. The last work of Gorky is the epic novel "The Life of Klim Samgin", which has the second name "Forty Years". The writer worked on this manuscript for 11 years, but did not have time to finish it.

After the final return to his homeland in 1932, Maxim Gorky worked in the publishing houses of newspapers and magazines, created a series of books "The History of Factories and Plants", "The Poet's Library", "The History of the Civil War", organized and held the First All-Union Congress of Soviet Writers. After the unexpected death of his son from pneumonia, the writer wilted. During the next visit to the grave of Maxim, he caught a bad cold. For three weeks Gorky had a fever that led to his death on June 18, 1936. The body of the Soviet writer was cremated, and the ashes were placed in the Kremlin wall on Red Square. But first, the brain of Maxim Gorky was removed and transferred to the Research Institute for further study.

For a more complete biography of Maxim Gorky, see here:

From the very beginning of his creative path, Maxim Gorky wrote works on a children's theme. The writer A. M. Gorky is considered one of the founders of modern children's literature, he devoted a lot of effort to its creation, made sure that books were written by people who love children, understand their inner world.

Our virtual exhibition presents books for different age categories of readers.

Books by Maxim Gorky for children of preschool and primary school age.

Gorky, M. Case with Yevseyka [Text] / M. Gorky; comp. V. Prikhodko; rice. Y. Molokonova. - Moscow: Malysh, 1979. –80 s. : ill.

The fairy tale "The Case with Yevseyka" was first published in 1912 in the newspaper "The Day". In 1919, it appeared with some changes in the Northern Lights magazine. It contains extensive educational material, presented poetically, in an entertaining and accessible form for children. Gorky sees nature through the eyes of the boy Evseika. This gives the writer the opportunity to introduce into the fairy tale comparisons understandable to children: sea anemones are like cherries scattered on stones; Yevseyka saw the holothurian "resembling a badly drawn pig", the spiny lobster rolls "eyes on strings", the sepia looks like "a wet handkerchief". When Yevseyka wanted to whistle, it turned out that this could not be done: "water gets into your mouth like a cork."

Gorky, A. M. Vorobishko : [Text] / Alexei Maksimovich Gorky; [art. A. Salimzyanova] . – Moscow: Meshcheryakov Publishing House, 2010. – 30, p. : col. ill. - (Children's classic).

One of the most striking children's works of Gorky can rightly be called the fairy tale "Sparrow". Sparrow Pudik did not know how to fly yet, but he was already looking out of the nest with curiosity: “I wanted to quickly find out what God's world is and whether it is suitable for it.” Due to exorbitant curiosity, Pudik gets into trouble - falls out of the nest; and the cat “red, green eyes” is right there ...

The fairy tale "Sparrow" is written in the style of oral folk art. The narration sounds unhurried, allegorical. As in a folk tale, there is heroic and comic here, and sparrows are endowed with feelings, thoughts, human experiences.

Gorky, M. Once upon a time there was a samovar [Text]: stories and fairy tales / M. Gorky; comp. Vladimir Prikhodko. - Moscow: Children's Literature, 1986. -54, p. : ill. - (School library).

The fairy tale “Samovar” is sustained in satirical tones, the heroes of which were “humanized” objects: a sugar bowl, a creamer, a teapot, cups. The leading role belongs to the “little samovar”, who “loved to show off very much” and wanted “the moon to be removed from the sky and made a tray out of it for him.” By alternating between prose and verse texts, making subjects so well known to children sing songs and have lively conversations, Maxim Gorky achieved the main thing - to write interestingly, but not to allow excessive moralization. Based on his creative principles, the writer initiated the creation of a special type of literary fairy tale in children's literature, characterized by the presence of a significant scientific and educational potential in it.

Gorky, M. About Ivanushka the Fool [Text]: Russian folk tale / Maxim Gorky; fig. Nikolai Kochergin. - St. Petersburg; Moscow: Speech, 2015. - With. : col. ill. - (Series "Mom's Favorite Book").

Full of perky and kind humor, the Russian folk tale "About Ivanushka the Fool", heard by Maxim Gorky as a child and later embodied in the author's retelling, will not only amuse the kids, but also help to instill in children a love of reading and artistic taste. After all, the illustrations for it were created by Nikolai Kochergin, an outstanding artist of a children's book and a real magician of the brush.

Books by Maxim Gorky for children of primary and secondary school age.

Gorky, M. Danko's burning heart [Text] / M. Gorky; rice. V. Samoilov. - Saratov: Privolzhskoe book publishing house, 1973. – 16 s. : ill.

Legends have been created by people since ancient times. In a bright, figurative form, they told about the heroes and events, conveying to the reader folk wisdom, folk aspirations and dreams. Gorky uses the genre of literary legend, because it was the best fit for his plan: briefly, excitedly, vividly sing of all the best that can be in a person. The legend about Danko tells about a brave and handsome young man. He is happy that he lives among people, because he loves them more than himself. Danko is courageous and fearless, he sets himself a noble goal - to be useful to people. From deep compassion for fellow tribesmen who live without the sun in the swamps, who have lost their will and courage, the fire of love for them was lit in Danko's heart. This spark turned into a torch.

Gorky, M. Stories and fairy tales for children [Text] / Maxim Gorky; artistic S. Babyuk. - Moscow: Dragonfly, 2010. –157, p. : ill. - (School library).

In the works of Maxim Gorky for children, fairy tales occupied a special place, in which ideological and aesthetic principles were clearly expressed, the same as in stories on the theme of childhood and adolescence.

In fairy tales, Maxim Gorky continued to work on a new type of children's fairy tale, in the content of which a special role belonged to the cognitive element.

The hymn to nature, the sun in the fairy tale "Morning" is combined with the hymn to labor and "the great work of people, done by them everywhere around us." And then the author considered it necessary to remind the children that working people “decorate and enrich the earth all their lives, but remain poor from birth to death.” Following this, the author poses the question: “Why? You will find out about this later, when you become big, if, of course, you want to know ... "

Creating artistic images of children in his works ("Grandfather Arkhip and Lenka", "Misha", "Shake", "Ilya's Childhood", etc.), the writer sought to depict children's fates in a specific social and domestic environment.

In the story "The Shake-Up", the autobiographical beginning was noticeably affected, because the author himself worked as a teenager in an icon-painting workshop, which was also reflected in his trilogy. At the same time, in Shake-Up, Maxim Gorky continued to expand on the theme of the overwork of children and adolescents, which was important to him.

Gorky, M. Tales of Italy [Text] / M. Gorky; engravings by K. Bezborodov. - Moscow: Children's literature, 1980. -128 p. : ill.

"Tales of Italy", written for adults, almost immediately during the revolutionary upsurge of the early 20th century. were published for children. "Tales of Italy" sang the joy of labor, the equality of people, affirmed the idea of ​​the unity of the working people. Most of the heroes of "Fairy Tales" sacredly honor the bright experience of the past: "remembering is the same as understanding."

One of the best tales of the cycle is the tale of Pepe. The boy loved nature: "Everything occupies him - flowers flowing in thick streams over good land, lizards among lilac stones, birds in chased olive foliage." The image of Pepe is given in the perspective of the future - poets and leaders grow out of people like him. And at the same time, it embodies the characteristic features of ordinary people in Italy with their kindness, openness, love for the land.

Books by Maxim Gorky for children of middle and senior school age.

Gorky, M. Childhood [Text] / M. Gorky; artistic B. A. Dekhterev. - Moscow: Soviet Russia, 1982. –208 s. : ill.

The story "Childhood", the first part of Gorky's autobiographical trilogy, was written in 1913. The mature writer turned to the theme of his past. In "Childhood" he tries to comprehend this period of life, the origins of the human character, the reasons for the happiness and unhappiness of an adult.

In the center of the story is the boy Alyosha, by the will of fate "abandoned" to his mother's family. After the death of his father, Alyosha was raised by his grandfather and grandmother. Therefore, we can say that these people are the main ones in his fate, those who raised the boy laid all the foundations in him. But besides them, there were many people in Alyosha's life - numerous uncles and aunts, who all lived under one roof, cousins, guests ... They all raised the hero, influenced him, sometimes without wanting to.

Gorky, M. My universities [Text] / M. Gorky; ill. B. A. Dekhtereva. - Moscow: Soviet Russia, 1984. –128 s. : ill.

The story "My Universities", written in 1923, is the last part of Gorky's autobiographical trilogy.

The plot of the story focuses on the young Alyosha Peshkov, who goes to Kazan to enter the university, but soon, due to lack of funds, he realizes that studying there is not for him.

The young man takes several jobs, not disdaining hard physical labor. Alyosha lights up with a revolutionary spark, studies literature. So his life itself is a university - this is the main idea of ​​​​the work. Thirst for knowledge, continuous improvement, a mountain of necessary literature for your own enlightenment, meetings with interesting people, as well as like-minded people - all this allows you to form your own vision of the world better than an educational institution.

Gorky, M. Stories. At the bottom [Text] / M. Gorky. - Moscow: Drofa, 2001. - 160 p. - (School program).

The book includes early romantic stories "Makar Chudra", "Old Woman Izergil", "Chelkash", "Konovalov", "Mallow", as well as "The Legend of Marco", "Song of the Falcon", "Song of the Petrel".

In his works, Gorky performed a hymn to a beautiful and strong man. This is no coincidence. Gorky came to literature as an artist of the revolutionary masses rising up to fight. And he became a great poet of the liberation of the people. He put forward a new measure of a person's value: his will to fight, activity, ability to rebuild his life. "Makar Chudra" rightfully opens now all the collected works of the writer. It already sounds the voice of a new revolutionary art, which in the future, having grown stronger and developed, will enrich all Russian and world literature.

The play "At the Bottom", created by the writer in 1902, was conceived by Gorky as one of the four plays in the cycle, showing the life and worldview of people from different strata of society. The deep meaning that the author put into it is an attempt to answer the main questions of human existence: what is a person and whether he will retain his personality, sinking "to the bottom" of moral and social life.

The play "At the Bottom" has been living for more than a century and continues to be one of the most powerful works of Russian classics. The play makes one think about the place of faith and love in a person's life, about the nature of truth and lies, about a person's ability to resist moral and social decline.

Gorky, Maxim. Book about Russian people [Text] / Maxim Gorky. - Moscow: Vagrius, 2000. –577 p. : ill. – (My 20th century).

Perhaps it was Gorky who managed to reflect in his work the history, life and culture of Russia in the first third of the 20th century on a truly epic scale. This applies not only to his prose and drama, but also to his memoirs - primarily to "Notes from a Diary", to the famous literary portraits of Anton Chekhov, Leo Tolstoy, Vladimir Korolenko, Leonid Andreev, Sergei Yesenin, Savva Morozov, and also, to "Untimely Thoughts" - a chronicle of the times of the October Revolution. "The Book of the Russian People" (this is how Gorky originally thought to call his memoirs) is a unique series of characters - from intellectuals to philosophizing tramps, from revolutionaries to ardent monarchists. The essay about V. I. Lenin is published in the first edition - without later layers of "textbook gloss"

Pedagogical views of Maxim Gorky.

Gorky, M. About children's literature [Text]: articles, statements, letters / M. Gorky; intro. Art. comments N. B. Medvedeva. - Moscow: Children's Literature Publishing House, 1968. -432 p.

The purpose of this collection is to present as fully as possible the articles, letters, statements of A. M. Gorky on children's literature and children's reading.

The collection consists of five sections. The first contains articles and statements by A. M. Gorky on children's literature and children's reading; in the second, his letters to relatives, writers, teachers, scientists; in the third letter and appeal to children. The fourth section of the collection includes articles by A. M. Gorky on the work of children.

The last section publishes (in alphabetical order of authors) the memoirs of A. S. Serafimovich, N. D. Teleshov, K. I. Chukovsky, S. Ya. Marshak, A. S. Makarenko and other writers who, together with Gorky, worked on the creation of books for children, contributed to the development of Soviet children's literature. These articles and memoirs of Alexei Maksimovich's contemporaries help to present Gorky's many-sided activities in the field of children's literature more fully.

Books about the life and work of Maxim Gorky.

Bykov, D. L. Was there Gorky? [Text] / Dmitry Bykov. - Moscow: AST: Astrel, 2008. – 348, p., l. ill., port. : ill., portr.

Dmitry Bykov, a well-known prose writer, poet, bright publicist, in his book “Was there Gorky?” draws the figure of a classic writer free from literary gloss and subsequent mythology.

Where does Alexey Peshkov end and Maxim Gorky begin? Who was he? Bytopisatel, singer of the city bottom? "Petrel of the revolution"? An incorrigible romantic? Or did his position in life and writing sometimes border on cold calculation? Be that as it may, Bykov is sure: “Gorky is a great, monstrous, touching, strange and absolutely necessary writer today”

“Maxim Gorky enriched Soviet colloquial speech with dozens of quotes: “We sing a song to the madness of the brave”; "Man - it sounds proud"; "Let the storm come on stronger"; "Not a single flea is bad: all are black, all are jumping." "Lead abominations of life" - this is sometimes attributed to Chekhov, but Gorky said something in the story "Childhood".

Vaksberg, A. I. The death of the petrel [Text]: M. Gorky: The last twenty years / A. I. Vaksberg. - Moscow: TERRA-Sport, 1999. - 391 p.

The author of the book, a well-known writer, a master of documentary prose and journalism, vice-president of the Russian PEN Club, in his documentary novel explores the last 20 years of the life of M. Gorky, a unique historical figure, expresses his purely subjective vision of the events that took place over this time.

The foundations of this study are the many faces of Gorky, which drew the attention of many authors who wrote about him, and above all those who personally met him. All of them noted the impossibility of showing Gorky's image with a certain sign - positive or negative. The sign slipped away, entered into an irreconcilable conflict with reality. Until now, however, books about Gorky, especially biographical ones, have been almost mythical stereotypes, squeezed into frames strictly defined by party ideologists. That is why in this book the author made extensive use of his right as a creator - to state his own point of view, without taking away from the reader his right to accept or reject.

Maxim Gorky in the memoirs of contemporaries [Text]: in two volumes / comp. and prepare. text by A. A. Krundyshev; artistic V. Maksina. - Moscow: Fiction, 1981. - 445 p.

This volume includes memories of Gorky in the post-revolutionary period: about his life in Sorrento, about his triumphant trip around the Land of the Soviets, about returning to his homeland and about the last days of his life.

“He loved both laughter and jokes, but he treated the vocation of a writer, artist, creator implacably, severely, passionately.

Listening to some novice gifted writer, he could burst into tears, get up and leave, from the table, wiping his eyes with a handkerchief, grumbling: “They write well, striped devils.”

This was the whole Anatoly Maksimovich ...

A. N. Tolstoy

A. M. Gorky in portraits, illustrations, documents 1968- 1936 [Album]: a manual for secondary school teachers / comp.: R. G. Weislehem; I. M. Kasatkina and others; ed. M. B. Kozmina and L. I. Ponomarev. -Moscow: State Educational and Pedagogical Publishing House of the Ministry of Education of the RSFSR, 1962. – 520 p.

This publication is intended to tell about the life and work of Gorky with the help of visual, documentary and textual material.

The reader will see here reproductions of paintings and illustrations by such artists as I. Repin, V. Serov, S. Gerasimov, Kukryniksy, P. Korin and many others, who are the pride of our art. A large place in the album is occupied by rare documentary photographs taken from the personal archives of the writer or people close to him.

Gorky's activity, as is known, is extraordinarily multifaceted. He is a great writer, the founder of the literature of socialist realism, and an outstanding publicist. A fiery revolutionary, a prominent public figure.

Naturally, all these aspects of the diverse activities of Alexei Maksimovich are reflected in the album (of course, within the limits possible for this edition).

Books from the collection "Rare Book" GBUK RO "Rostov Regional Children's Library. V.M. Velichkina:

Gorky, M. How I studied [Text] / Maxim Gorky. -Moscow; Leningrad: State Publishing House, 1929. – 22 s.

First published on May 29, 1918 in the New Life newspaper under the title "About books", and at the same time, with the subtitle "Story", in the newspaper "Book and Life".

The story is based on a speech that M. Gorky delivered on May 28, 1918 in Petrograd at a rally in the Culture and Freedom society. The speech began with the words: “I will tell you, citizens, about what books have given to my mind and feeling. I learned to read consciously when I was fourteen years old ... ”The work was reprinted several times under the title“ How I Learned ”with the first phrase omitted and slight additions at the end of the story.

In 1922, Maxim Gorky significantly expanded the story for a separate edition of 3. I. Grzhebin.

The story was not included in the collected works.

In Naples, tram employees went on strike: a chain of empty cars stretched out along the entire length of the Chiaia Riviera, and a crowd of carriage drivers and conductors gathered on Victory Square - all cheerful and noisy, agile as mercury, Neapolitans. Above their heads, over the grate of the garden, a stream of a fountain, as thin as a sword, sparkles in the air; blame the strikers. Angry words are heard, sharp mockery, hands are constantly flashing, with which the Neapolitans speak as expressively and eloquently as they do with restless language. A light breeze blows from the sea, the huge palm trees of the city garden quietly shake their fans of dark green branches, their trunks are strangely like the clumsy legs of monstrous elephants. Boys - half-naked children of the Neapolitan streets - jump like sparrows, filling the air with sonorous cries and laughter. The city, resembling an old engraving, is generously doused with hot sun and sings all over like an organ; the blue waves of the bay hit the stone of the embankment, echoing the murmurs and shouts with booming beats, like a tambourine buzzing. The strikers sullenly huddle together, almost not responding to the irritated cries of the crowd, climb onto the trellis of the garden, looking uneasily into the streets over the heads of people, and resemble a pack of wolves surrounded by dogs. It is clear to everyone that these people, uniformly dressed, are firmly bound to each other by an unshakable decision that they will not give in, and this annoys the crowd even more, but there are also philosophers among it: calmly smoking, they admonish the too zealous opponents of the strike: - Hey, sir! But what if there is not enough children for pasta? Smartly dressed municipal police agents stand in groups of twos and threes, making sure that the crowd does not impede the movement of carriages. They are strictly neutral, with the same calmness they look at the blamed and the blamers, and good-naturedly make fun of both when gestures and shouts take on too hot a character. In case of serious clashes in a narrow street along the walls of the houses there is a detachment of carabinieri, with short and light guns in their hands. This is a rather ominous group of people in cocked hats, short raincoats, with red stripes on their trousers, like two jets of blood. The squabbling, ridicule, reproaches and exhortations—everything suddenly subsides, some new wind sweeps over the crowd, as if reconciling people—the strikers look gloomier and, at the same time, move closer, exclamations are heard in the crowd:— Soldiers! A mocking and jubilant whistle is heard at the strikers, shouts of greeting are heard, and some fat man, in a light gray pair and a Panama hat, begins to dance, stamping his feet on the pavement stone. The conductors and carriage drivers slowly make their way through the crowd, go to the cars, some climb onto the platforms - they have become even more sullen and, in response to the exclamations of the crowd, sternly snap, forcing them to give way. It gets quieter. With a light dancing step, small gray soldiers walk from the embankment of Santa Lucia, rhythmically tapping their feet and mechanically monotonously waving their left arms. They seem to be made of tin and fragile, like wind-up toys. They are led by a handsome tall officer, with furrowed brows and a contemptuously twisted mouth, next to him, jumping up, runs a fat man in a top hat and tirelessly says something, cutting the air with countless gestures. The crowd has receded from the cars - the soldiers, like gray beads, are scattered along them, stopping at the platforms, and the strikers are standing on the platforms. The man in the top hat and some other respectable people who surrounded him, desperately waving their arms, shout: “Last time… Ultima volta!” Do you hear? The officer twirls his mustache boredly, bowing his head; a man runs up to him, waving his top hat, and hoarsely shouts something. The officer glanced sideways at him, straightened up, straightened his chest, and loud words of command were heard. Then the soldiers began to jump onto the platform of the wagons, two on each, and at the same time the wagon drivers with the conductors poured out from there. This seemed ridiculous to the crowd—a roar, a whistle, and laughter flared up, but immediately died out, and the people silently, with long, gray faces, wide-eyed in astonishment, began to heavily retreat from the carriages, advancing with their whole mass towards the first. And it became clear that a couple of steps from his wheels, across the rail, lay, taking off his cap from his gray head, a carriage driver, with the face of a soldier, he lies chest up, and his mustache menacingly sticks out into the sky. Next to him, another small, dexterous, like a monkey, young man rushed to the ground, after him, slowly, more and more people fall to the ground ... The crowd hums deafly, voices are heard, fearfully calling for the Madonna, some grimly swear, squeal, groan women, and, like rubber balls, boys jump around amazed by the spectacle. The man in the top hat yells something in a sobbing voice, the officer looks at him and shrugs his shoulders - he must replace the wagon drivers with his soldiers, but he has no order to fight the strikers. Then the top hat, surrounded by some obsequious people, rushes towards the carabinieri - so they set off, come up, lean towards those lying on the rails, want to pick them up. A struggle began, a fuss, but - suddenly the whole gray, dusty crowd of spectators swayed, roared, howled, poured onto the rails - the man in Panama tore off his hat from his head, threw it into the air and first lay down on the ground next to the striker, slapping him on the shoulder and shouting in his face in an encouraging voice. And behind him, they began to fall onto the rails as if their legs had been cut off - some cheerful, noisy people, people who had not been here two minutes before that moment. They threw themselves on the ground, laughing, making faces at each other and shouting to the officer, who, shaking his gloves under the nose of the man in the top hat, said something to him, grinning, shaking his beautiful head. And people kept pouring onto the rails, women threw their baskets and some bundles, boys lay down laughing, curling up like cold dogs, rolling from side to side, getting dirty in the dust, some decently dressed people. The five soldiers from the platform of the first car looked down at the pile of bodies under the wheels and—laughing, rocking on their feet, holding on to the racks, throwing their heads up and arching, now—they don't look like wind-up tin toys. ... Half an hour later, all over Naples, tram cars rushed with a screech and creak, the winners stood on the platforms, grinning merrily, and they walked along the cars, politely asking: Billetti?! People, handing them red and yellow papers, wink, smile, grumble good-naturedly.

RUSSIAN TALES

Being ugly and knowing this, the young man said to himself:

I'm smart. I will become a sage. With us it is very simple.

And having read as many wise books as needed to become short-sighted, he proudly raised his nose, reddened from the weight of his glasses, and declared to everything that existed:

Well, no, you can't fool me! I see that life is a trap set for me by nature!

And love? asked the Spirit of Life.

Thank you, thank God I'm not a poet! I will not enter the iron cage of inevitable duties for a piece of cheese!

But still, he was not a particularly gifted person and therefore decided to take the post of professor of philosophy.

He comes to the Minister of Public Education and says:

Your Excellency, here - I can preach that life is meaningless and that the suggestions of nature should not be obeyed!

The minister thought: "Is it good or not?"

Then he asked:

Do you have to obey orders from superiors?

Definitely - a must! - said the philosopher, respectfully bowing his head wiped by books. For the passions of man...

Well, that's it! Get on the pulpit. Salary - sixteen rubles. Only - if I prescribe to accept even the laws of nature for guidance, look - without freethinking! I will not tolerate!

And, thinking, he melancholy said:

We live in such a time that for the sake of the interests of the integrity of the state, perhaps, the laws of nature will have to be recognized not only as existing, but also useful - in part!

"Damn it! - the philosopher mentally exclaimed. - You will get to this, how ..."

Out loud, he didn't say anything.

So he got a job: every week he climbed into the pulpit and spoke for an hour to different curly-haired young men:

Gracious sovereigns! A person is limited from the outside, limited from the inside, nature is hostile to him, a woman is a blind instrument of nature, and for all this, our life is completely meaningless!

He was accustomed to thinking this way and often, carried away, spoke beautifully, sincerely; the young students enthusiastically clapped him, and he, satisfied, affectionately nodded his bald head to them, his red nose shone with tenderness, and everything went very well.

Dinners in restaurants were harmful to him - like all pessimists, he suffered from indigestion - so he married, dined at home for twenty-nine years; between times, imperceptibly for himself, he produced four children, and after that he died.

Behind his coffin, respectfully and sadly, were three daughters with young husbands and a son, a poet, in love with all the beautiful women of the world. The students sang "Eternal Memory" - they sang very loudly and cheerfully, but - badly; over the grave, the professor's comrades spoke flowery speeches about how harmonious the dead metaphysics was; everything was quite decent, solemn and even touching at times.

So the old man died! - said one student to his comrades when they left the cemetery.

He was a pessimist, another replied.

And the third asked:

Well? Is it?

Pessimist and conservative.

Look, bald! And I didn't even notice...

The fourth student was a poor man, he inquired anxiously:

Will they call us for a wake?

Yes, they were called.

Since the late professor wrote good books during his lifetime, in which he passionately and beautifully proved the aimlessness of life, books were bought well and read them with pleasure - after all, whatever you say, a person loves the beautiful!

The family was well provided for - and pessimism can provide! - the commemoration was arranged by the rich, the poor student ate extremely well and, when he went home, he thought, smiling good-naturedly:

"No - and pessimism is useful..."

And there was another case.

Someone, considering himself a poet, wrote poetry, but for some reason they were all bad, and this made him very angry.

One day, he is walking down the street and sees: a whip is lying on the road - the cabman has lost.

An inspiration struck the poet, and immediately an image formed in his mind:

Like a black scourge, in the dust of the road Lies - crushed - the corpse of a snake. Above him - a swarm of flies buzzing anxiously, Around - beetles and ants. Links of thin ribs turn white Through broken scales... A snake! You remind me of my lost love...

And the whip stood on the end of the whip and says, swinging:

Well, why are you lying? A married man, you know the letter, but you're lying! After all, your love has not died out, you both love your wife and are afraid of her ...

The poet was angry:

That is none of your business!..

And bad poetry...

And you can't even think of those! You can only whistle, and even then not yourself.

But why are you lying anyway? After all, love hasn't died, has it?

You never know what was not, but it is necessary that there be ...

Oh, your wife will beat you! Take me to her...

How about, wait!

Well, God be with you! - said the whip, twisting like a corkscrew, lay down on the road and thought about people, and the poet went to the tavern, asked for a bottle of beer and also began to think, but - about himself.

"Although the whip is rubbish, but the verses are again rather bad, that's true! It's a strange thing! One always writes bad verses, while the other sometimes succeeds in good ones - how wrong everything is in this world! Stupid world!"

So he sat, drank, and, delving more and more into the knowledge of the world, he finally came to a firm decision: "We must tell the truth: this world is absolutely worthless, and it is even insulting for a person to live in it!" For an hour and a half he thought in this direction, and then composed:

The motley scourge of our passionate desires Drives us into the rings of the Death-Snake, We stray in a deep fog. Ah - kill your desires! They deceitfully beckon us into the distance, We drag ourselves through a thorn of grievances, Along the way - the heart of sorrow is wounded, And at the end of it - everyone is killed ...

And stuff like that - twenty-eight lines.

This is clever! - exclaimed the poet and went home, very pleased with himself.

At home, he read poems to his wife - she also liked it.

Only, - she said, - the first quatrain seems to be wrong ...

They will devour! Pushkin also began "the wrong one" ... But - what is the size? memorial service!

Then he began to play with his son: putting him on his knee and throwing him up, he sang in tenor:

Jump-jump On someone else's footbridge! Eh, I'll be rich - I'll wash mine, I won't let anyone in!

We had a very fun evening, and in the morning the poet took down the poems to the editor, and the editor said thoughtfully - they are all thoughtful, editors, that's why magazines are boring.

Hm? the editor said, touching his nose. - This, you know, is not bad, and most importantly, it is very in tune with the mood of the time, very much! Hmmm, here you are, perhaps, and found yourself. Well, keep up the good work... Sixteen kopecks a line... four forty-eight... Congratulations!

Then the poems were printed, and the poet felt like a birthday man, and his wife kissed him zealously, saying languidly:

M-my poet, oh-oh...

Had a nice time!

And one young man - a very good young man, painfully looking for the meaning of life - read these verses and shot himself. You see, he was sure that the author of poetry, before rejecting life, was looking for meaning in it as long and painfully as he himself, the young man, was looking for, and he did not know that these gloomy thoughts are sold for sixteen kopecks a line. Serious was.

Let the reader not think that I want to say that sometimes even a whip can be used for the benefit of people.

Yevstigney Zakivakin lived for a long time in quiet modesty, in timid envy, and suddenly suddenly became famous.

And it happened like this: one day, after a sumptuous feast, he spent his last six hryvnias and, waking up the next morning in a heavy hangover, very dejected, sat down to his usual job: to compose announcements in verse for the Anonymous Funeral Procession Bureau.

He sat down and, sweating profusely, wrote persuasively:

They hit you on the neck or on the forehead, - It doesn't matter, you will lie down in a dark coffin... You are an honest person or a scoundrel, - Still, they will drag you to the churchyard... Whether you tell the truth or lie, - It's all the same: you will die !..

He carried the work to the "bureau", but they do not accept it there:

Sorry, - they say, - this cannot be printed in any way: many dead people can be offended and even shudder in coffins. It’s not worth admonishing the living to death - they themselves, God willing, will die ...

Zakivakin was upset:

Damn you! Take care of the dead, erect monuments, serve memorial services, and the living - starve to death ...

In a disastrous mood of spirit, he walks the streets and suddenly sees - a signboard, and on it - in black letters on a white field - it says:

"The Harvest of Death".

Another funeral home, and I did not know! Evstigney rejoiced.

But it turned out that this was not a bureau, but the editorial office of a new non-partisan and progressive magazine for youth and self-education. Zakivakin was affectionately received by the editor-publisher Mokey Govorukhin himself, the son of the famous salotop and soap maker Antipa Govorukhin, a lively, albeit thin, guy.

Looked Mokey rhymes, - approved:

Your inspiration, - he says, - is just the very word of new poetry, not yet spoken by anyone, in search of which I equipped myself, like the Argonaut Herostratus ...

Of course, he lied all this at the suggestion of the wandering critic Lazarus Servotka, who also always lied, and thus created a big name for himself. Mokey looks at Yevstigney with buying eyes and repeats:

The material is just right for us, but keep in mind that we don’t print poetry for nothing!

I want to be paid, - Yevstigneyka confessed.

Wa-am? For poetry? Joke! Mokey laughs. - We, sir, only the third day we hung the sign, and already during this time seventy-nine fathoms of poems were sent to us! And all names are signed!

But Yevstigney is not inferior, and agreed on a penny per line.

Only because it's really great for you! Mokey explained. - You should choose a pseudonym for you, otherwise Zakivakin is not quite excellent. Now, if ... for example, - Smertyashkin, huh? Stylish!

It doesn't matter, - said Evstigney. - I - anyhow get a fee: I really want to eat ...

He was a simple-minded guy.

And after a while, the poems were printed on the first page of the first book of the magazine, under the heading:

From that day on, glory befell Yevstigneyka: the inhabitants read his poems - they rejoiced:

Correctly written, mother's son! And we live, we try somehow, this and that, and it was imperceptible to us that in our life, by the way, there is no point! Well done Smertyashkin!

And they began to invite him to evenings, to weddings, to funerals and to commemoration, and his poems in all fashion magazines are printed in half a line, and already at literary evenings full-breasted ladies, smiling charmingly, read "Smertyashkin's poetry":

Every day life strikes us, Death threatens us from everywhere! From every point of view, We are only victims of corruption!

Bravo-oh! Thanks-oh! the inhabitants shout.

"But, perhaps, I really am a poet?" - Yevstigneyka thought and began - little by little - to become conceited: he started black-and-white socks and ties, put on also black trousers with a white stripe across and began to speak languidly, spreading his eyes in different directions:

Oh, how it went - vital!

He read the funeral liturgy and uses gloomy words in his speech: packs, until, in vain ...

Various critics walk around him, depleting Yevstigneikin's fee, and inspire him:

Go deeper, Yevstigney, and we will support you!

And indeed, when the book "Obituaries of Desires, Poetry of Yevstigney Smertyashkin" came out, critics very favorably noted the deep graveness of the author's moods. Evstigneyka decided to get married in joy: he went to the familiar modern girl Nymphodora Zavalyashkina and said to her:

Oh, ugly, inglorious, without sight!

She has been expecting this for a long time and, falling on his chest, coos, decomposing with happiness:

I agree to go to death hand in hand with you!

Doomed to Destruction! Evstigney exclaimed.

Nymphodora, mortally wounded by passion, responds:

My disappearing without a trace!

But immediately, fully returning to life, she suggested:

We must arrange a stylish life!

Smertyashkin was already accustomed to a lot of things and immediately understood.

I, - he says, - of course, is inaccessibly above all prejudices, but, if you want, let's get married in the cemetery church!

Do I want to? Oh yeah! And let all the best men immediately after the wedding shoot themselves!

Everyone, perhaps, will not agree to this, but Kukin can - he has already shot himself seven times.

And that the priest was old, you know, so ... on the eve of death.

Thus, dreaming in style, they sat until, from the cold tomb of space, where myriads of extinct suns are buried and frozen planets whirl in a dead dance, until in this desert of the bottomless cemetery of departed worlds, the mournful face of the moon appeared, gloomily illuminating the earth devouring all living things... Ah, this terrible radiance of the dead moon, like the glow of rotten things, always reminds sensitive hearts that the meaning of life is smoldering, smoldering...

Smertyashkin was so inspired that even without much difficulty he composed verses and whispered them in a black whisper into the ear of the future skeleton of his beloved:

Choo, death knocks with an honest hand On the lid of the coffin, like a tambourine! .. I hear her call so clearly Through the vulgar chaos of boring everyday life. Life argues with her, - with a false cry Calls people to their deceptions; But you and I will not increase the number of slaves captured by her! You can't bribe us with sweet lies, After all, you and I both know, Life is only a moment, sick and short, And its meaning is under the lid of the coffin!

How dead! - admired Nymphodora. - How stupidly grave!

She understood all these things perfectly.

On the fortieth day after that, they were married at Nikola on Tychka, in an old church, closely surrounded by the smug graves of a crowded cemetery. For the sake of style, two gravediggers signed as witnesses of the marriage, the best men were notorious candidates for suicide; as a friend, the bride chose three hysterics, of which one had already tasted vinegar essence, others were preparing for this, and one gave her word of honor to commit suicide on the ninth day after the wedding.

And when they went out onto the porch, the best man, a pimply guy who studied the effects of salvarsan (an arsenic-based drug for the treatment of syphilis - Ed.), Opening the carriage door, said gloomily:

Here is the hearse!

The newlywed, in a white dress with black ribbons and under a black veil, was dying of delight, and Smertyashkin, looking around at the audience with moist eyes, asked the best man:

Are there reporters?

And the photographer...

Don't move, Nymphochka...

Reporters, out of respect for the poet, dressed up as torchbearers, and the photographer as an executioner, while the inhabitants - they don't care what to look at, it would be funny! Residents approved

Quel chic! (What a chic - Ed.)

And even some eternally starving peasant agreed with them:

Charmant! (charming - Ed.)

Yes, - said Smertyashkin to the newlywed at dinner in a restaurant opposite the cemetery, - we perfectly buried our youth! This is what is called victory over life!

Do you remember that these are all my ideas? asked Nymphodora tenderly.

Yours? Is it?

Of course.

Well does not matter:

You and I are one soul and body! You and I are now forever merged. It is death so wisely commanded, We are her slaves and satellites.

But still, I won't let you swallow my personality! she warned charmingly. - And then, satellites, I think it is necessary to pronounce two "t" and two "l"! However, the satellites, in general, seem out of place to me ...

Smertyashkin once again tried to overcome her with verses:

What is our "I", my Mortal? Is it not there or is it - It's all the same! Be active, be inert - It doesn't matter - you're not immortal!

No, this must be left for others, ”she said meekly.

After a long series of such and similar clashes, Smertyashkin accidentally gave birth to a child - a girl, and Nymphodora ordered:

Order a cradle in the shape of a coffin!

Isn't that too much, Nymphochka?

No, please! Style must be strictly maintained if you do not want critics and the public to reproach you for bifurcation and insincerity ...

She turned out to be a very economic lady: she herself pickled cucumbers, carefully collected all the reviews about her husband's poems and, destroying the disapproving ones, published laudable ones in separate volumes at the expense of the poet's admirers.

With good food, she became a portly woman, her eyes were always clouded by a dream, arousing in male people a passionate desire to submit to fate. She brought in a domestic critic, a wiry man, red-haired, sat him next to her, and, piercing a vague look right into his heart, read her husband’s verses in a deliberately nasal way, asking with conviction:

Deep? Strongly?

At first, he only mumbled, and then began to write monthly fiery articles about Smertyashkin, who "with incomprehensible depth penetrated into the abyss of that black mystery that we, miserable ones, call Death, and he fell in love with a transparent child with pure love. His amber soul did not darken knowledge of the horror of the aimlessness of being, but turned this horror into quiet joy, into a sweet call to the destruction of that continuous vulgarity that we, blind souls, call Life.

With the benevolent help of the redhead, - according to his convictions, he was a mystic and esthete, by his last name - Prokharchuk, by profession - a hairdresser - Nymphodora brought Yevstigneyka to a public reading of poetry: he will go out onto the stage, turn his knees right and left, look at the inhabitants with white sheep's eyes and, shaking his angular head, on which grew various differences of bast color, he broadcasts indifferently:

In life, we are like at the station, Before leaving for the dark world of the afterlife ... The fewer suitcases you take, The easier and more convenient it is for you! Let's live meaninglessly and simply! Be empty, then you will be clean. A short way from the cradle to the churchyard! Death serves as a machinist for life! ..

Bravo-oh! - shout quite satisfied residents - Thank you, oh!

And they say to each other:

Cleverly, rogue, he proves, for nothing, that he is such a sucker! ..

Those who knew that Smertyashkin had previously worked poetry for the Anonymous Funeral Procession Bureau were, of course, now convinced that he sings all his songs to advertise the Bureau, but, being equally indifferent to everything, they were silent, keeping one thing in mind:

"Everyone needs to eat!"

“Maybe I really am a genius!” thought Smertyashkin, listening to the approving roar of the inhabitants. “After all, no one knows what a genius is; some argued that geniuses are crazy ... But if so ...”

And when meeting with acquaintances, he began to ask them not about health, but:

When will you die?

This made it even more popular among the residents.

And the wife arranged the living room in the form of a crypt; put green sofas, in the style of grave mounds, and on the walls she hung pictures with Goya, with Callo, and even - Wurtz!

Boasts:

Even in our nursery, the spirit of Death is palpable: the children sleep in coffins, the nanny is dressed as a schema woman - you know, such a black sundress, with white embroidery - skulls, bones, and so on, very interesting! Evstigney, show the ladies the nursery! And we, gentlemen, let's go to the bedroom ...

And, smiling charmingly, she showed the decoration of the bedroom: over the bed, like a sarcophagus, there was a black canopy with a silver fringe; skulls carved from oak supported him; ornament - small skeletons gently play with grave worms.

Evstigney, - she explained, - is so absorbed in his idea that he even sleeps in a shroud ...

Some residents were amazed:

She smiled sadly.

But Yevstigneyka was an honest guy at heart and sometimes involuntarily thought: “If I’m a genius, then what is it? Criticism writes about influence, about Smertyashkin’s school, but I ... I don’t believe in it!”

Prokharchuk would come, stretching his muscles, looking at him and asking in a bass voice:

Did you write? You, brother, write more. Your wife and I will quickly do the rest... She is a good woman, and I love her...

Smertyashkin himself had seen this for a long time, but due to lack of time and love for peace, he did nothing against it.

And then Prokharchuk will sit in a more comfortable chair and tell in detail:

If you knew, brother, how many corns I have and what kind! Napoleon himself did not have such ...

My poor! sighed Nymphodora, while Smertyashkin drank coffee and thought:

"How rightly it is said that there are no great people for women and lackeys!"

Of course, he, like any man, was wrong in judging his wife - she very diligently aroused his energy:

Styognyshko! she said lovingly. - You didn't write anything yesterday, did you? You're skimping on talent more and more, honey! Go work and I'll send you coffee...

He walked, sat down at the table and suddenly composed completely new poems:

How much vulgarity and nonsense I wrote, Nymphodora, For the sake of rags, for the sake of fur coats, For the sake of hats, lace, skirts!

This frightened him, and he reminded himself:

There were three children. They had to be dressed in black velvet; every day, at ten o'clock in the morning, an elegant hearse was brought to the porch, and they went for a walk to the cemetery - all this required money.

And Smertyashkin dejectedly deduced line after line:

Everywhere a greasy cadaverous smell Death has shed over the world. Life in her bony paws, Like a sheep in the claws of an eagle.

You see, Styognyshko, Nymphodora said lovingly. - It's not exactly... how do you say? How should I say, Masya?

This is not yours, Evstigney! said Prokharchuk in a bass voice and with complete knowledge of the matter. - You are the author of "Hymns of Death", and write hymns...

But this is a new stage of my experiences! Smertyashkin objected.

Well, dear, well, what are the experiences? wife assured. - It is necessary to go to Yalta, and you are acting weird!

Remember, - Prokharchuk suggested in a grave tone, - that you promised:

To glorify the death of the authorities Meekly and humbly... - And then pay attention: "like a sheep in" involuntarily resembles the name of the minister - Kokovtsev, and this can be mistaken for a political trick! The public is stupid, politics is vulgarity!

Well, okay, I won't, - said Yevstigney, - I won't! Everything is one, - nonsense!

Keep in mind that your poems have lately puzzled more than one of your wives! Prokharchuk warned.

Once Smertyashkin, watching his five-year-old daughter Liza walk in the garden, wrote:

A little girl walks in the middle of the garden, A little white hand boldly picks flowers... Little girl, you don't need to pick flowers, Because they are as good as you! Little girl! Black, mute, Death quietly follows you, You bend down to the ground, - raising your scythe, Death bares its teeth and - laughs, waits ... Little girl! Death and you are like sisters; You unnecessarily destroy bright flowers, And she is obliquely sharp, forever sharp! “Kills kids, like you...

But this is sentimental, Evstigney, - Nymphodora shouted indignantly. - Excuse me, where are you going? What are you doing with your talent?

I don't want any more," Smertyashkin declared gloomily.

What don't you want?

This. Death, death, enough! I hate the word itself!

Excuse me, but you are a fool!

Let! No one knows what a genius is! And I can't do it anymore... To hell with the grave and all this... I'm a man...

Ah, how is it? - ironically exclaimed Nymphodora. Are you only human?

Yes. And I love all living things...

But modern criticism has proved that the poet should not reckon with life and in general with vulgarity!

Criticism? yelled Smertyashkin. - Shut up, shameless woman! I saw modern critics kiss you behind the closet!

This is from the admiration of your own poems!

And our children are red, - also from admiration?

Vulgar! This may be the result of purely intellectual influence!

And suddenly, falling into a chair, she said:

Oh, I can't live with you anymore!

Yevstigneyka was both delighted and frightened at the same time.

Can not? he asked hopefully and fearfully. - What about children?

in half!

Three?

But she stood her ground. Then came Prokharchuk.

When he found out what was the matter, he became upset and said to Yevstigneyka:

I thought you were a big man and you were just a little man!

And he went to collect Nymphodora's hats. And while he was grimly busy with this, she told her husband the truth:

You're out of breath, pathetic man. You have no more talent, nothing! Hear: nothing!

She choked on the pathos of honest indignation and finished:

You never had anything! If it weren't for me and Prokharchuk, you would have been writing ads in verse all your life, you slug! Scoundrel, thief of my youth and beauty...

She always became eloquent in moments of excitement.

So she left, and soon, under the guidance and with the actual participation of Prokharchuk, she opened the "Institute of Beauty Madame Zhizan from Paris. Specialty - the radical destruction of corns."

Prokharchuk, of course, published a disparate article "A Gloomy Mirage", proving in detail that Yevstigney not only had no talent, but that one could even doubt whether such a poet existed. If it existed and the public recognized it, then this is the fault of hasty, careless and imprudent criticism.

And Evstigneyka yearned, yearned, and - a Russian person is quickly comforted! - sees: children need to be fed! He waved his hand at the past, at all deadly poetry, and went on to the old, familiar business: he writes funny ads for the New Funeral Home, convincing residents:

Long, sweet and bright On earth we love to live, But one day the Park will come And cut the thread of life! Having discussed this case, Slowly, from all sides, We offer the best material for a funeral! Everything with us is quite brilliant, Not worn out, not old: Come in more often In our "New Bureau"! Grave, 16

So they all returned to their paths.

Once upon a time there was an ambitious writer.

When they scolded him, it seemed to him that they were scolding excessively and unfairly, and when they praised him, he thought that they were praised little and stupidly, and so, in constant displeasure, he lived until the time when he needed to die.

The writer lay down in bed and began to swear:

Well, here you go, wouldn't you? Two novels have not been written. And in general, the material for another ten years. Damn this law of nature and all the others along with it! What nonsense! Good novels could be. And they came up with such an idiotic general duty. As if it couldn't be otherwise! And after all, it always comes at the wrong time - the story is not over ...

He is angry, and illnesses drill into his bones and whisper in his ears:

You were trembling, weren't you? Why did you tremble? You didn't sleep at night, did you? Why didn't you sleep? You drank from grief, huh? And with joy - too?

He grimaced, grimaced, finally he sees - there is nothing to do! He gave up on all his novels and - died. It was very unpleasant, but he died.

Good. They washed him, dressed him decently, combed his hair smoothly, put him on the table; he stretched out like a soldier, heels together, toes apart, lowered his nose, lies still, feels nothing, only wonders:

“How strange - I don’t feel anything at all! This is the first time in my life. My wife is crying. Okay, now you’re crying, but it happened, just a little bit - you climbed on the wall. I have never seen them... It must also be some law of nature. How many of them, these laws!

So he lay and thought and thought, and kept wondering at his own indifference—he was not used to it.

And now - they carried him to the cemetery, but suddenly he feels: there are few people behind the coffin.

"No, these are pipes!" he said to himself. "Although I am a writer and a small one, literature must be respected!"

He looked out of the coffin - indeed: he was escorted - not counting his relatives - nine people, including two beggars and a lamplighter, with a ladder on his shoulder.

Well, here he was quite indignant:

"What pigs!"

And he was so inspired by resentment that he immediately resurrected, imperceptibly jumped out of the coffin - he was a small man - ran into the barbershop, shaved off his mustache and beard, took a black jacket from the barber, with a patch under his arm, left him his suit, made himself respectfully distressed face and became quite as alive - it is impossible to recognize!

And even, out of curiosity, characteristic of his occupation, he asked the hairdresser:

Does this strange incident surprise you?

He only straightened his mustache condescendingly.

Have mercy, sir, - he says, - we live in Russia and are quite used to everything ...

Still - a dead man and suddenly changes clothes ...

Fashion of the time! And what kind of dead person are you? Only in appearance, but in general if you take it - God forbid everyone! Today, the living are holding on much more still!

Am I too yellowish?

Quite in the spirit of the era, sir, as it should be! Russia, sir - everyone lives yellow ...

It is known that hairdressers are the first flatterers and the most amiable people on earth.

The writer said goodbye to him and ran to catch up with the coffin, driven by a living desire to express for the last time his respect for literature; caught up - there were ten escorts, the honor of the writer increased. The oncoming people are surprised:

Look how the writer is being buried, ah-ah!

And understanding people, going about their business, think not without pride:

"It is noticeable that the meaning of literature is being understood more and more deeply by the country!"

The writer is walking behind his coffin, as if a fan of literature and a friend of the deceased, is talking with a lamplighter.

Did you know the deceased?

How! Got something from him.

Nice to hear!

Yes. Our business is a cheap, sparrow business, where it fell, peck there!

How is this to be understood?

Just understand, sir.

Well, yes. Of course, if you look from the points of view, then it is a sin, however, you can’t live without cheating.

Hm? Are you sure?

Surely so! The lantern is just opposite his window, and he sat every night until dawn, well, I didn’t light the lantern, because the light from his window is enough - therefore, one lamp is my net income! The man was helpful!

So, peacefully talking now with one, then with another, the writer reached the cemetery, and there he had to talk about himself, because all the escorts that day had a toothache, - after all, it was in Russia, and there everyone always has something something aches and pains.

He made a good speech, in one newspaper he was even praised:

"Someone from the audience, who reminded us of the outward appearance of a stage man, delivered a warm and touching speech over the grave. Although in it, in our opinion, he undoubtedly overestimated and exaggerated the more than modest merits of the deceased, an old-school writer who did not make any effort to get rid of from its annoying shortcomings - naive didacticism and the notorious "citizenship", - nevertheless, the speech was delivered with a feeling of undoubted love for the word.

And when everything - honor by honor - ended, the writer lay down in the domino and thought, quite satisfied:

"Well, that's it, and everything turned out very well, with dignity, as it should!"

Here he died completely.

This is how one should respect one's work, even if it were literature!

And then - once upon a time there was one gentleman, he lived more than half his life and suddenly felt that something was missing for him - he was very alarmed.

He feels himself - as if everything is whole and in place, and his stomach is even in excess; look in the mirror - nose, eyes, ears and everything else that a serious person is supposed to have - is; he counts the fingers on his hands - ten, on his feet - also ten, but still something is missing!

What kind of occasion?

Asks his wife:

What do you think, Mitrodora, is everything all right with me?

She confidently says:

And sometimes I feel...

As a religious woman, she advises:

If it seems - read mentally "May God rise again and scatter his enemies" ...

Gradually tortures friends about the same, friends answer inarticulately, and look - suspiciously, as if suggesting in him something quite worthy of strict condemnation.

"What?" - the master thinks in despondency.

He began to recall the past - as if everything was in order: he was a socialist, and he resented the youth, and then he renounced everything and for a long time already trampled on his own crops with his own feet. In general, he lived like everyone else, in accordance with the mood of the time and its suggestions.

I thought and thought and suddenly - I found:

"Lord! Yes, I don't have a national face!"

He rushed to the mirror - indeed, his face was vague, like a printed page of a translation from a foreign language, blindly and without commas, and the translator was carefree and illiterate, so it’s completely impossible to understand what this page is talking about: otherwise it requires the soul to be given as a gift to the freedom of the people, not that it affirms the need for full recognition of statehood.

"Hm, what a mess, though!" thought the master, and immediately decided: "No, it's inconvenient to live with such a face..."

He began to wash himself daily with expensive soaps - it does not help: the skin shines, but the ambiguity remains. He began to lick his face with his tongue - his tongue was long and deftly hung, the master was engaged in journalism - and the tongue does not benefit him. I applied a Japanese massage - the bumps popped out, as after a good fight, but there was no certainty of expression!

He suffered and suffered, all without success, only lost a pound and a half in weight. And suddenly, fortunately, he finds out that the bailiff of his section, von Judenfresser, is very remarkably distinguished by his understanding of national tasks - he went to him and said:

So and so, your honor, will you help in difficulty?

The bailiff, of course, is flattered that here is an educated person, recently suspected of illegality, and now he is trustingly advised how to change his face. The bailiff laughs and, in great joy, shouts:

There is nothing easier, my dear! You are my American brilliant, but if you rub yourself against a foreigner, it will immediately come to light, your true face ...

Here the master was delighted - a mountain from his shoulders! - loyally giggles and is surprised at himself:

I didn't guess, did I?

Trivia of the whole thing!

They parted as bosom friends, immediately the master ran out into the street, stood around the corner and waited, and as soon as he saw a Jew walking by, he ran into him and let's inspire:

If you, - he says, - are a Jew, then you must be Russian, but if you don’t want to, then ...

And the Jews, as is known from all the anecdotes, are a nervous and shy nation, and this one, moreover, had a capricious character and could not stand pogroms, - he turned around and hit the master on the left cheek, and he went to his family. The master is standing, leaning against the wall, rubbing his cheek and thinking:

"However, the identification of a national face is associated with sensations that are not entirely sweet! But - let it be! Although Nekrasov is a bad poet, he nevertheless correctly said:

Nothing is given for nothing, - the fate of the atoning sacrifices asks ... "

Suddenly, a Caucasian walks, a man - as proven by all the anecdotes - uncivilized and ardent, he walks and yells:

Mitskhales sakles mingrule-e...

Barin - on him:

No, he says, let me! If you are a Georgian, then you are - thereby - a Russian, and you should love not the Mingrelian hut, but what you are ordered to, but the prison - even without an order ...

He left the Georgians of the master in a horizontal position and went to drink Kakhetian, and the master lies and thinks:

"However, there are also Tatars, Armenians, Bashkirs, Kirghiz, Mordovians, Lithuanians - Lord, how many! And that's not all ... And then also our own, Slavs ..."

And just then a Ukrainian is walking and, of course, singing seditiously:

Dobre bullo to our fathers In the Ukraine to live ...

No, - said the master, rising to his feet, - you should be so kind as to use eras from now on, because by not using them, you violate the integrity of the empire ...

For a long time he told him different things, but he listened to everything, because - as is irrefutably proved by all collections of Little Russian jokes - Ukrainians are slow people and like to do things slowly, and the master was a very sticky person ...

Compassionate people raised the gentleman, asking:

Where do you live?

In Great Russia...

Well, they took him to the station, of course.

They were taking him, and, feeling his face, not without pride, although with pain, he felt that it had grown considerably, and he thought:

"Looks like I got..."

They introduced him to von Judenfresser, and he, being humane to his people, sent for a police doctor, and when the doctor arrived, they began to whisper among themselves in amazement, and they all snorted, inconsistent with the event.

The first case in the entire practice, the doctor whispers. I don't know how to understand...

"What would that mean?" - the master thinks, and asked:

The old - everything has been erased, - answered von Judenfresser.

Has the face changed at all?

Sure, just, you know...

The Doctor reassuringly says:

Now you, my dear sir, have such a face that even trousers can be put on him ...

And so it remained for the rest of his life.

There is no moral here.

And the other master liked to justify himself with history - as soon as he wants to lie to him, he now orders the right person:

Yegorka, go and pull facts from history to prove that it does not repeat itself, and vice versa...

Egorka is dexterous, pulls quickly, the master will decorate himself with facts, in accordance with the requirements of the circumstances, and prove everything that he needs, and is invulnerable.

And he was, by the way, a seditious - at one time everyone found that it was necessary to be seditious, and boldly pointed out to each other:

The British have habeas corpus, and we have circulars!

This difference between nations was very wittily mocked.

They will indicate and, freed from civil grief, they would sit down, it happened, to screw up to the third roosters, and when they proclaim the arrival of morning, the master commands:

Egorka, pull something uplifting and appropriate to the moment!

Yegorka will strike a pose and, raising her finger, will pointedly remind:

In Holy Russia, the roosters sing - Soon there will be a day in Holy Russia! ..

Right! the gentlemen say. - Definitely, - there must be a day ...

And they go to rest.

Good. But only suddenly the people began to worry restlessly, the master noticed this, asked:

Yegorka - why do people tremble?

And he, with pleasure, conveys:

People want to live like human beings...

Here the master became proud:

Aha! Who gave it to him? This - I inspired! For fifty years, I and my ancestors have been suggesting that it's time for us to live like human beings, huh?

And he began to get carried away, every now and then he drives Egorka:

Pull facts from the history of the agrarian movement in Europe ... from the Gospel texts, about equality ... from the history of culture, about the origin of property - live!

Egorka - glad! So he rushes about, even covered in soap, tore all the books, only the bindings remained, heaps of different excitatory evidence dragging the master, and the master praises him:

Try! Under the constitution, I will put you in the editor of a large liberal newspaper!

And, finally emboldened, he personally inspires the most reasonable peasants:

Still, - he says, - the Gracchi brothers in Rome, and then in England, in Germany, in France ... and all this is historically necessary! Egorka - facts!

And he will immediately prove by facts that every people is obliged to desire freedom, even if the authorities do not desire it.

The men, of course, are happy - they shout:

Thank you very much!

Everything went very well, amicably, in Christian love and mutual trust, only - all of a sudden the peasants ask:

When will you leave?

And down?

From earth...

And they laugh - what an eccentric! He understands everything, but he has ceased to understand the simplest things.

They laugh, and the master is angry ...

Excuse me, - he says, - where will I go, if the land is mine?

And the men don't believe him.

How is yours, if you yourself said that the Lord and that even before Jesus Christ, some just people knew this?

He does not understand them, but they do not understand him, and again master Yegorka by the side:

Yegorka, go and pick out all the stories...

And he answers him quite independently:

All stories are torn into evidence to the contrary ...

You lie, seditious!

However, it is true: he rushed to the library, looks - from the books there are only roots and empty bindings left; he even sweated from the unexpectedness of this and distressedly called out to his ancestors:

And who advised you to create history in such a one-sided way! So we have worked out ... ehma! What the hell is this story?

And the men pull their own:

So, - they say, - you perfectly proved to us that you should leave soon, otherwise we will drive you away ...

Egorka, on the other hand, finally passed on to the peasants, his nose turned to the side, and even when meeting with the master he began to snort:

Habeas corpus, over there! Liebberal, right there...

It got really bad. The peasants began to sing songs and, to celebrate, haystacks of the master's hay were taken to their yards.

And suddenly - the master remembered that he still had something in store: great-grandmother was sitting on the mezzanine, waiting for imminent death, and she was so old that she forgot all human words - she only remembers one thing:

Don't give...

Since the sixty-first year, she could not speak anything but.

He rushed to her in a great agitation of feelings, fell down kindly at her feet and cried out:

Mother of mothers, you are living history...

And she, of course, mutters:

Don't give...

But - how?

Don't give...

And they me - on the flow and plunder?

Don't give...

Should I give strength to my unwillingness to notify the governor?

You scared the old woman, and she sent for the soldiers - calm down, nothing will happen, I won’t let the soldiers get to you!

Well, formidable warriors rode on horseback, it was a winter thing, the horses were sweating on the road, and then they were trembling, covered with frost, - the master felt sorry for the horses, and he placed them in his estate - he placed them and said to the peasants:

Senzo, which you didn’t quite correctly take away from me, return it to these horses, because the cattle are not to blame for anything, right?

The army was hungry, they ate all the roosters in the village, and it became quiet around the master. Egorka, of course, again went over to the master's side, and as before the master uses it for history: he bought a new copy and ordered to black out all the facts that could seduce liberalism, and ordered those that could not be blacked out to be filled with new meaning.

Yegorka - what? He is capable of everything, he even began to engage in pornography for the sake of reliability, but nevertheless a bright spot remained in his soul and, staining history for fear, - for his conscience, he writes and prints regretful stichera under a pseudonym: P.B., that means "defeated fighter".

O messenger of the morning, red loop! Why has your proud cry ceased? Replaced you - as I noticed - Gloomy owl. The master does not want the future, And again in the past we are all today ... And you, oh loops, were fried And eaten all ... When will we be lured back to life again? And who will sing to us in the morning? Oh, if there are no roosters - We'll oversleep after all!

And the men, of course, have calmed down, live quietly and, having nothing to do, compose obscene ditties:

Oh, honest mother! Here spring comes, - We will groan a little, Yes, we will die of hunger!

The Russian people are a cheerful people...

In a certain kingdom, in a certain state, Jews lived, there were ordinary Jews for pogroms, for slandering and other state needs.

The order was as follows: as soon as the indigenous population begins to show dissatisfaction with their existence, from the points of observation of the order, from the side of their nobility, a bewitching call is heard:

People, come closer to the seat of power!

The people will be attracted, and they will seduce him:

Why the excitement?

Your nobility - there is nothing to chew!

Do you have more teeth?

There is little...

You see - you always manage to hide something from the hands of your superiors!

And if their nobles found that the excitement was pacified by the final knocking out of teeth, they immediately resorted to this means; if they saw that this could not create harmony in relations, then they seductively sought out:

What do you want?

Earthlings would...

Some, in the ferocity of their misunderstanding of the interests of the state, went further and begged:

Some kind of Leformov, so that, therefore, our teeth, ribs and entrails should be considered, as it were, our property and should not be touched in vain!

Here their nobility began to admonish:

Eh, brothers! Why these dreams? "Not about bread alone:" - it is said, and it is also said: "For a beaten man they give two unbeaten!"

Do they agree?

Unbeaten?

God! Of course! To us in the third year, after the Assumption, the British asked - that's how! Send, they ask, all your people somewhere to Siberia, and put us in their place, we, they say, will carefully pay taxes to you, and we will drink vodka twelve buckets a year per brother, and in general. No, we say, why? Our people are good, humble, obedient, and we will get along with them. That's what guys, it would be better for you than to worry in vain, go and beat up the Jews, huh? What are they for?

The indigenous population will think, think, see - you can’t wait for any sense, except for what is destined by the authorities, and decide:

Well, in, aidati, children, blessing!

Fifty houses will be destroyed, several Jewish people will be killed, and, tired in labor, will calm down in desires, and order will triumph! ..

In addition to their nobility, the indigenous population and the Jews, to avert unrest and extinguish passions, there were good people in that state, and after each pogrom, having gathered with their entire number - sixteen people - declared a written protest to the world:

"Although the Jews are also Russian subjects, we are convinced that they should not be completely exterminated, and hereby - from all points of view - we express our condemnation of the immoderate destruction of living people. Humanists. Fitoyedov. Ivanov. Kusaygubin. Toropygin. Krikunovsky. Osip Troeukhov. Grokhalo Figofobov Kirill Mefodiev Slovotekov Kapitolina Kolymskaya Retired lieutenant colonel Nepeypivo Pr.pov Narym Khlopotunsky Pritulikhin Grisha Budushchev, seven years old, boy.

And so after each pogrom, with the only difference that Grishin's age changed, but for Narym - on the occasion of his unexpected departure to the city of the same name - Kolymskaya signed.

Sometimes the provinces responded to these protests:

“I sympathize and join,” Razdergaev telegraphed from Dremov; Zatorkanny from Myamlin also joined, and from Okurov - "Samogryzov and others", and it was clear to everyone that "dr." - he invented for greater threat, because there are no "others" in Okurov. did not have.

The Jews, reading the protests, cry even more, and then one day one of them - a very cunning man - suggested:

Do you know that? Not? Well, let's hide all the paper and all the pens and all the ink before the next pogrom and see what they will do then, these sixteen and with Grisha?

The people are friendly - said and done: they bought all the paper, all the pens, hid it, and poured the ink into the Black Sea and - they sit, wait.

Well, we didn’t have to wait long: permission was received, a pogrom was carried out, Jews were in hospitals, and humanists were running around Petersburg, looking for papers, pens - there was no paper, no pens, nowhere except in the offices of their nobility, and from there - they don’t give!

Look you! - they say. - We know for what purposes you need it! No, you can do without it!

Khlopotunsky pleads:

Yes - how?

Well, they say, we have taught you enough protests, guess for yourself ...

Grisha - he is already forty-three years old - is crying.

I want to carve!

And - nothing!

Figofobov gloomily guessed:

On the fence, right?

And in St. Petersburg there are no fences, only bars.

However, they ran to the outskirts, somewhere behind the slaughterhouses, found an old fence, and, just as Humanists had drawn the first letter with chalk, suddenly - supposedly descending from heaven - a policeman came up and began to exhort:

What will it be? For such an inscription, the boys are scolded, and you are respectable like gentlemen - ah-yay-yay!

Of course, he did not understand them, thinking that they were writers from those who write under the 1001st article, but they became embarrassed and went - in the literal sense - to their homes.

So one pogrom remained unprotested, and the humanists - without pleasure.

People who understand the psychology of races are right to say - the Jews are a cunning people!

Here, too, lived, there were two crooks, one black and the other red, but both mediocre: they were ashamed to steal from the poor, the rich were out of reach for them, and they lived somehow, caring, most importantly, about going to prison, on state-owned bread to get.

And these loafers survived until the difficult days: the new governor, von der Pest, arrived in the city, looked around and ordered:

"From this date, all the inhabitants of the Russian faith, without distinction of sex, age and occupation, must, without reasoning, serve the fatherland."

The comrades of the black one and the redhead hesitated, sighed, and everyone dispersed: some became detectives, some became patriots, and some were smarter - both here and there, and the redhead and the black one were left completely alone, in general suspicion. They lived for a week after the reform, let their bellies down, could not stand it any longer, the red-haired man said to his comrade:

Vanka, let's serve the fatherland, shall we?

The little black man was embarrassed, lowered his eyes and said:

Ashamed...

You never know! Many of us lived satisfactorily, however - let's go for it!

They still fit in the prison companies ...

Drop it! You look: now even writers teach: "Live as you like, it doesn't matter - you will die" ...

They argued, argued, and did not agree.

No, - says the black one, - you - go ahead, but I'd rather remain a crook ...

And he went about his business: the kalach will be pulled off the tray and will not have time to eat, as they will seize him, beat him and - to the world, and he will honestly determine him for state-owned food. The little black one will sit for two months, his stomach will recover, he will be released - he is going to visit the red one.

What are you doing?

I destroy children.

Being ignorant in politics, the black one is surprised:

For calm. Everyone is ordered - "be calm," the redhead explains, and in his eyes there is despondency.

The little black one will shake his head and - again to his work, and him - again to the prison for feeding. And simple, and conscience is clear.

Released - he again to a friend - they loved each other.

Exterminate?

Yes, but how...

Not sorry?

I already choose which are more gilded ...

And in a row - you can’t?

The redhead is silent, only sighs heavily and - sheds, becomes yellow.

How are you?

Yes, that's all ... They will catch them somewhere, bring them to me and tell me to get the truth from them, but nothing can be achieved, because they are dying ... I don’t know how, apparently ...

Tell me what is it for? - asks the black one.

The interests of the state require, - says the redhead, and his voice trembles and tears in his eyes.

The little black man thought - he feels very sorry for his comrade - what kind of independent activity would he open?

And suddenly - flashed!

Listen - did you steal money?

Why, how? Habit...

Well, that's what - publish a newspaper!

You will print advertisements for rubber products...

The redhead liked it, grinned.

To not have children?

And of course! Why give birth to them in agony?

It's right! But why a newspaper?

To cover the trade, weirdo!

Employees don't seem to agree.

The black one even whistled.

Won! Now employees offer themselves alive in awards to subscribers ...

On this they decided: the redhead began to publish a newspaper, "with the participation of the best literary forces", opened a permanent exhibition of Parisian products at the office, and above the editorial office, for the sake of decency, established a rendezvous for high-ranking officials.

Things have gone well, the redhead is living, getting fat, the bosses are satisfied with them, and on his business cards it is printed:

"Along Across

Editor-publisher of the newspaper "Tuda-suda", founding director

"Sweet rest for administrators, weary of the pursuit of the rule of law." There is also a wholesale and retail trade in condoms.

A little black one will come out of the prison, go to a comrade to drink tea, and the red-haired one treats him with champagne and boasts:

I, brother, now even began to wash my face only with champagne, by God!

And, closing his eyes with delight, he says touchingly:

Well you got me thinking! This is a service to the fatherland! Everyone is happy!

And the black one is also happy:

Well, live here! Our fatherland is undemanding.

The redhead is touched - he invites a friend:

Van, come to me as a reporter!

Black laughs:

No, brother, I must be a conservator, I’ll remain a swindler, in the old way ...

There is no moral here. Not grain.

One day, the authorities, tired in the fight against dissidents and wanting to finally rest on their laurels, ordered most sternly:

“This is instructed to bring all dissenters into cash, without hesitation, extracting them from under all kinds of covers, and, upon discovery, to eradicate to the ground by various measures suitable for this.”

The execution of this order was entrusted to the civilian exterminator of living beings of both sexes and all ages, Orontiy Stervenko, the former captain of the service of His Highness the King of the Fuegians and the ruler of Tierra del Fuego, for which Orontiy was allocated sixteen thousand rubles.

Not because Orontius was called to this work so that his dead ones would not be found, but because he was unnaturally fearful, distinguished by hairiness, which allowed him to walk naked in all climates, and had two rows of teeth - sixty-four pieces completely, which is what he deserved special trust of the authorities.

But, in spite of all these qualities, he thought cruelly:

“How do you find them? They are silent!

And indeed, the resident in this city was drilled - everyone was afraid of each other, considering them provocateurs, and did not say anything at all, even talking with their mothers in a conditional form and in a foreign language:

N'est-ce pas? (Isn't it - Ed.)

Maman, it's time for dinner, n'est-ce pas?

Maman, why don't we go to the cinema today, n'est-ce pas?

However, after thinking enough, Stervenko found a way to reveal secret thoughts: he washed his hair with hydrogen peroxide, shaved in the right places and became a dull-looking blond, and then put on a sad-colored suit, and - do not recognize him!

He will go out into the street in the evening and walk thoughtfully, and seeing that a resident, obedient to the voice of nature, is sneaking somewhere, he will attack him from his left side and whisper defiantly:

Comrade, are you satisfied with this existence?

First, the resident slows down his steps, as if remembering something, but the alarm clock will appear a little far away - then the resident will immediately find himself:

Policeman, hold him...

Stervenko jumped over the fence like a tiger and, sitting in the nettles, thought:

“You can’t take them like that, they act naturally, devils!”

In the meantime, the appropriations are melting away.

He changed into more cheerful clothes and began to catch a different trick: he boldly approached the resident and asked:

Sir, do you want to become a provocateur?

And the resident coolly inquires:

How much salary?

Others politely decline:

Thank you, I'm already engaged!

“Y-yes,” Orontius thinks, “go ahead and catch him!”

In the meantime, the appropriation somehow diminishes by itself.

I looked into the Society for the Comprehensive Disposal of Eggs, but it turned out that it was under high pressure from three bishops and a gendarmerie general, and met once a year, but each time with special permission from St. Petersburg.

Orontius is bored, and from this the appropriation seems to have fallen ill with transient consumption.

Here he got angry.

Okay!

And he began to act directly: he would approach the resident and without preamble ask him:

Are you satisfied with existence?

Well, the authorities are not happy! Please...

And whoever says - dissatisfied, of course:

Let...

Yes, I am dissatisfied with the fact that it is not firm enough.

Yes, sir? Vzz...

In this way, within three weeks, he recruited ten thousand different creatures and first planted them wherever possible, and then began to hang them, but - to save money - at the expense of the inhabitants themselves.

And everything went very well. Only once did the chief authorities go hunting for hares, and after leaving the city, they see - in the fields an extraordinary revival and a picture of the peaceful activity of citizens - they cover each other with evidence of guilt, hang them, bury them, and Stervenko walks between them with a rod in his hands and encourages:

Thor-painting! You, brunette, more fun! Hey, venerable, why are you dumbfounded? The loop is ready - well, climb, there is nothing to detain others! Boy, hey boy, why are you climbing before daddy? Gentlemen, do not rush, you will have time for everything ... We have endured for years, waiting for calm, you can endure a few minutes! Man, where? .. Ignorant ...

The authorities look, sitting on the back of a zealous horse, and think:

“However, he scored a lot of them, well done! It’s just that in the city all the windows are tightly boarded ... "

And suddenly he sees - his own aunt is hanging, not touching the firmament of the earth with her feet - he was very surprised.

Who ordered?

Stervenko is right there.

I, your highness!

Here the boss said:

Well, brother, it seems you are a fool and you are almost wasting government sums! Give me a report.

He presented a report to Stervenko, and it says:

“In pursuance of the order to eradicate dissidents of both sexes, I discovered and planted 10.107.

supposed................................................. 729 v.p.

hanged................................................. 541 » »

irreparably damaged .............................. 937 » »

didn't make it................................................... 317 » »

themselves................................................ 63 » »

Total eradicated ................................................................ ...1876 v.p.

For the amount................................................. ............16.884 R.,

counting seven rubles apiece with everything.

And overspent .................................................. 884 rubles

The authorities were horrified, shaking and muttering:

Over-expenditure? Oh you Fuegian! Yes, all your Tierra del Fuego with the king and with you together is not worth 800 rubles! Just think - after all, if you steal such pieces, then I am a person ten times higher than you - how then? Why, with such appetites, Russia won't last three years, and meanwhile you don't want to live alone - can you understand that? And besides, 380 superfluous people were attributed, because those who "did not live" and those who "themselves" are clearly superfluous! And you, a robber, think for them too? ..

Yours! - Orontius justifies himself, - so it was I who brought them to disgust to life.

And for this seven rubles? Moreover, probably, how many people are not involved in anything! All the inhabitants in the city were twelve thousand - no, my dear, I will put you on trial!

Indeed, they appointed the strictest investigation into the actions of the Fuegian, and it turned out that he was guilty of embezzling 916 state rubles.

They tried Orontius with a fair trial, sentenced him to three months in prison, ruined his career, and - the Fuegian disappeared for three months!

It's not easy to please the boss...

One good-natured man thought and thought - what to do?

“I will not resist evil with violence, I will overcome it with patience!”

He was not without character, he decided, he sits and endures.

And the spies of the Igemonovs, having learned about this, immediately reported:

“Among the residents subject to discretion, some suddenly began to behave motionless and wordless, clearly intending to mislead the authorities that he was not at all.”

Hegemon went berserk.

How? Who is absent? No leadership? Introduce! And when presented, he ordered:

Search!

They searched, deprived of valuables, such as: they took a watch and an engagement ring, made of pure gold, pulled out gold fillings from teeth, removed brand new suspenders, ripped off buttons, and report:

Done, Hegemon!

Well, what - nothing?

Nothing, but what was superfluous - selected!

What about in your head?

And there is nothing in my head.

Allow!

A resident entered the Hegemon, and already by the way he supported his pants, the Hegemon saw and understood his complete readiness for all the contingencies of life, but, wanting to make a crushing impression on the soul, nevertheless roared menacingly:

Aha, the resident, has appeared?!

And the resident meekly confesses:

All came.

What are you, huh?

I, Igemone, nothing! Simply - I decided to win with patience ...

Hegemon bristled, growls:

Again? Win again?

Yes, I'm evil...

Be silent!

I don't mean you...

Hegemon does not believe:

Not me? Who?

Igemon was surprised.

Stop! What is evil?

In resistance to it.

Oh god...

Hegemon even broke a sweat.

"What about him?" - he thinks, looking at the inhabitant, and after thinking, he asks:

What do you want?

I do not want anything.

So, nothing?

Nothing! Allow me to teach the people patience by my personal example.

Hegemon thought again, biting his mustache. He had a dreamy soul, loved to bathe in the bath, and cackled voluptuously, was generally inclined to constantly experience the joys of life, but the only thing he could not stand was resistance and obstinacy, against which he acted with emollients, turning the cartilage and bones of the obstinate into porridge . But in the hours free from the test of joy and softening of the inhabitants, he very much loved to dream of the peace of the whole world and the salvation of our souls.

He looks at the resident and is perplexed.

Is it a long time ago? And so!

Then, coming to soft feelings, he asked, sighing:

How did this happen to you, huh?

And the resident replied:

Evolution...

N-yes, brother, here it is our life! That - that, that - another... In everything it is unreasonable. We swing, we swing, but we don’t know which side to lie on ... we can’t choose, yes ...

And Hegemon sighed again: after all, a man felt sorry for his fatherland, fed from him. Hegemon is overwhelmed by various dangerous thoughts:

“It's nice to see a resident soft and tamed - so! But however, if everyone stops resisting, wouldn't this lead to a reduction in daily allowances and per diems? And also awards can suffer ... No, it can’t be that he has completely dried up - pretending to be a rogue! Need to test it. How will I use it? Provocateurs? The expression on his face is loose, no mask can hide this impersonality, and his eloquence, apparently, is dull. In executioners? Weak ... "

Finally he came up with it and - he says to the servants:

Determine this blessed one in the third fire station of the stable to clean!

Defined. The resident of the stable cleans intrepidly, and Hegemon looks on, is touched by his patience, and trust in the resident grows in him.

“What if everyone is okay?”

In the short time of the test, he elevated him to himself and gave them to rewrite with his own hand a falsely compiled report on the income and expenditure of various amounts, - the resident rewrote and - is silent.

Igemon was finally touched, even to tears.

"No, this creature is useful, although literate! .."

He calls the inhabitant before his face and says:

I believe! Go and preach your truth, but keep your eyes peeled!

A resident went to the bazaars, to fairs, to big cities, to small ones, and everywhere he proclaimed:

What are you doing?

People see - a personality that disposes to trust and extraordinary meekness, confess before him who is to blame, and even cherished dreams open: one - how to steal with impunity, the other - how to cheat, the third - how to slander someone, and all together - as people primordially Russian - want to evade all duties before life and forget the obligation.

He tells them:

And you - drop everything! That is why it is said: “Every existence is suffering, but it turns into suffering thanks to desires, therefore, in order to destroy suffering, one must destroy desires.” Here! Let's stop wishing, and everything will be destroyed by itself - by God!

People, of course, are happy: both correctly and simply. Now, where someone stood, there he lay down. It became free, quiet ...

How long, how short, but only Igemon notices that it is already very humbly around and it seems even creepy, but he is brave.

"Pretend, rogues!"

Some insects, continuing to fulfill their natural duties, multiply unnaturally, becoming more and more daring in their actions.

"However - what a speechlessness!" - Hegemon thinks, shivering and scratching everywhere.

Calls a serving cavalier from the inhabitants.

Come on, free me from the extra...

And that one to him:

I can not.

I just can’t, because although they are disturbing, they are alive, but ...

But I'll make you a dead man!

Your will.

And so it is in everything. All unanimously say - your will, and as he orders to fulfill his will - mortal boredom begins. The Hegemon's palace is falling apart, rats have filled it, they eat things and, poisoned, die. Hegemon himself plunges deeper and deeper into non-doing, lies on the sofa and dreams of the past - it was good then!

The inhabitants resisted the circulars in various ways, some had to be executed by death, hence the commemoration with pancakes, with a good treat! That is where the resident is trying to do something, you have to go and prohibit the action, hence - running! If you report where it should be that "in the space entrusted to me, all the inhabitants have been eradicated," they will receive awards from here, and fresh inhabitants will be sent!

The Hegemon dreams of the past, and the neighbors, the Hegemons of other tribes, live for themselves, as they used to live, on their own foundations, their inhabitants resist each other with what they can and where necessary, they make noise, stupidity, all kinds of movement, but nothing, and it’s useful them, and in general - it is interesting.

And suddenly Igemon guessed:

“Fathers! But a resident podkuzmil me!”

He jumped up, ran around his country, pushes everyone, pats, orders:

Get up, wake up, get up! Whatever!

He has them by the collar, but the collar is rotten and does not hold.

Damn! - Hegemon shouts in complete anxiety. - What do you? Look at your neighbors!.. Even China over there...

The inhabitants are silent, clinging to the ground. "God! - Igemon yearned. - What to do?" And he went on a deception: he leaned over to the inhabitant and whispered in his ear:

Hey citizen! The Fatherland is in danger, by God, those crosses are in grave danger! Get up - you need to resist ... You hear that any amateur activity will be allowed ... citizen!

And the citizen, decaying, mutters:

From-flow my in God ...

Others are simply silent, like the offended dead.

Damned fatalists! - shouts Igemon in despair. - Get up! Any resistance is allowed...

One former merry fellow and scuffler got up a little, looked and said:

Why resist? There is nothing at all...

Yes, insects...

We are used to them!

The mind of the Hegemons was completely distorted, he stood in the navel of his land and yelled in a heart-rending voice:

I allow everything, fathers! Save yourself! Do it! I allow everything! Eat each other!

Peace and quiet is comforting.

Hegemon sees - it's over!

He sobbed, burst into burning tears, tears his hair, cries out:

Residents! Dear! What now - to myself, or something, to make a revolution? Come to your senses, it's historically necessary, nationally inevitable... After all, I can't make a revolution on my own, I don't even have the police to do it, the insects have devoured everything...

And they only clap their eyes and - at least plant them on a stake - they will not bow!

So everyone was silent and tried on, and the desperate Hegemon - after all.

From which it follows that even in patience there must be moderation.

Finally, the wisest of the inhabitants thought about all this:

"What? Everywhere you look - around sixteen!

And after a lot of thought, we decided:

All this is because we do not have a personality. We need to create a central thinking organ, completely free from any dependencies and fully capable of rising above everything and standing in front of everything - just like, for example, a goat is in a flock of rams ...

Someone objected:

Brothers, haven’t we suffered enough from the central personalities? ..

Did not like.

It seems to be something of politics and even civil grief?

Someone is pulling:

Why, how can it be without politics, if it penetrates everywhere? Of course, I mean that in prisons - it is crowded, in hard labor - there is nowhere to turn around and that expansion of rights is necessary ...

But he was sternly noted:

This, my sir, is an ideology, and it's time to quit!.. What is needed is a new man and nothing more...

And after this, they began to create a person according to the methods indicated in the patristic traditions: they spit on the ground and stir, they immediately got dirty up to their ears in the mud, but the results are thin. In their convulsive zeal, they trampled down all the rare flowers on earth and also destroyed the useful cereals - they try, sweat, strain - nothing comes out, except for booing and mutual accusations of inability to be creative. Even the elements were taken out of patience by their zeal: whirlwinds blow, thunders rumble, voluptuous heat scorches the soaked earth, for - it is pouring downpours and the whole atmosphere is saturated with heavy smells - it is impossible to breathe!

However, from time to time this mess with the elements seems to be clarified, and - behold, a new personality comes into the light of God!

There is a general jubilation, but - alas, it is short-lived and quickly resolves into painful bewilderment.

For if a new personality grows on a peasant's land, then he immediately becomes a seasoned merchant and, entering life, begins to sell the fatherland to foreigners in pieces, from forty-five kopecks at a price, up to a passionate desire to sell an entire region, together with living inventory and with all thinking bodies.

A new person will be kneaded on merchant land - he will either be born a degenerate or want to get into the bureaucrats; on the lands of the nobility - as always before - creatures grow with the intention of absorbing all the income of the state, and on the lands of the townspeople and various small owners provocateurs, nihilists, passivists and the like grow like wild thistles of various forms.

But - we already have all this in a very sufficient quantity! - the wise inhabitants confessed to each other and seriously thought:

“We made some kind of mistake in the technique of creativity, but what kind?”

They sit, meditate, and the mud all around whips like a wave of the sea, oh, Lord!

They argue:

You, Celery Lavrovich, spit too abundantly and comprehensively ...

And you, Cornishon Lukich, don't have the courage to do that...

And the newborn nihilists, pretending to be Vaska Buslaevs, treat everything with contempt and yell:

Hey you vegetables! Think how it is better, and we will help you ... to give a damn about everything ...

And they spit, and they spit...

Boredom universal, mutual anger and dirt.

At that time, Mitya Korotyshkin, nicknamed the Steel Claw, a second-grade student of the Myamlin gymnasium and a famous collector of foreign stamps, passed by, shirking from lessons, he walks and sees: people are sitting in a puddle, spitting into it and thinking deeply about something .

“Adults, but patcholi!” thought Mitya with the insolence characteristic of small years.

He examined whether there was anything pedagogical among them, and, not noticing it, inquired:

Why are you, uncles, climbed into a puddle?

One of the residents, offended, entered into an argument:

Where is the puddle? It's just a semblance of pre-time chaos!

What are you doing?

We want to create a new person! Tired of people like you...

Mitya got interested.

And in whose likeness?

That is, as? We want the incomparable... come on in!

Being a child not yet initiated into the secrets of nature, Mitya, of course, was delighted with the opportunity to be present at such an important matter and ingenuously advises:

Make three legs!

What is this for?

He will run funny...

Go away, boy!

What about with wings? That would be clever! Make it with wings, by golly! And let him kidnap the teachers, like the condor in Captain Grant's Children - there, let's say, the condor did not steal the teacher, but it would be better if the teacher ...

Boy! You are talking nonsense and very harmful! Remember the prayer before and after the teaching...

But Mitya was a fantastic boy and became more and more carried away:

There is a teacher in the gymnasium, and he would have him - hop! from behind by the collar and would carry it somewhere in the air - it's all the same! - the teacher only dangles with his legs, and the books keep falling, and never to find them ...

Boy! Go respect your elders!

And he shouts to his wife from above: “Farewell, I ascend to heaven, like Elijah and Enoch,” and she kneels in the middle of the street and whines: “My teacher, teacher! ..”

They got angry with him.

Wow! There is someone to talk nonsense without you, but it's still too early for you!

And they drove away. And he, having run back a little, stopped, thought and asked:

Are you for real?

Of course...

Doesn't it come out?

They sighed gloomily and said:

No. Leave me alone...

And I know why, and I know why!

They - for him, he - from them, but, accustomed to running from camp to camp, they caught up with him and let's wag.

Oh, you ... teasing the elders? ..

Mitya - cries, begs:

Uncles... I'll give you a Sudanese stamp... I have a duplicate... I'll give you a penknife...

And they scare him as a director.

Uncles! I, by God, will never tease again! And, really, I guessed why a new person is not created ...

Let go a little!

They let go, but they hold both hands, he tells them:

Uncles! The earth is not the same! The earth is no good, honestly, no matter how much you spit, nothing will come of it! .. After all, when God created Adam in his image and likeness, the earth was no one's, and now everything is someone else's, that's why man always someone else... and it's not about spitting at all...

This stunned them so much that they lowered their hands, and Mitya - fought yes, running away from them, put his fist to his mouth and shouted:

Red Comanches! Ir-roquois!

And they again unanimously sat down in a puddle, and the wisest of them said:

Colleagues, we continue our studies! Let's forget about this boy, for there is no doubt that he is a socialist in disguise...

Oh, Mitya, dear!

Once upon a time there were Ivanychi - wonderful people! Whatever you do with it - nothing is surprised!

They lived in a close environment of Circumstances, completely independent of the laws of nature, and Circumstances did everything they wanted and could do with them: they would tear off seven skins from Ivanych and ask menacingly:

Where is the eighth?

Ivanychi, not at all surprised, answer obediently to the Circumstances:

Not grown up yet, Your Excellencies! Hold on a little...

And Circumstances, impatiently waiting for the growth of the eighth skin, brag to their neighbors, in writing and orally:

Our population is benevolent towards obedience, do with it what you like - it is not surprised at anything! Not like yours...

So the Ivanychi lived, they worked something, paid taxes, gave bribes to whom as much as they should, and in their free time from these activities they quietly complained to each other:

Difficult, brothers!

Which are smarter - predict:

It will be even more difficult!

Sometimes one of them added two or three more words to these words, and they respectfully said about such a person:

He put an end to the "i"!

Ivanychi even got to the point that they occupied a large house in the garden and put special people in it, so that every day, exercising in eloquence, they dot the "i".

Four hundred people will gather in this house, and four of them will start planting dots like flies; plant as many police officers - out of curiosity - will allow, and brag all over the earth:

We are making history!

And the police officer looks at this occupation of theirs as a scandal, and - as soon as they try to put an end to another letter - he resolutely suggests to them:

I ask you not to spoil the alphabet, and - go home!

They will disperse them, and they - not surprised - console themselves among themselves:

Nothing, - they say, - we will write all these outrages, for shame, on the pages of history!

And Ivanychi, secretly gathering in their own apartments in twos and threes at once, whisper, also not surprised:

Our chosen ones have again been deprived of the gift of speech!

Daredevils and desperate heads whisper to each other:

Circumstances law is not written!

Ivanychi generally liked to console themselves with proverbs: they would put one of them in jail for accidentally disagreeing with the Circumstances - they meekly philosophize:

Not in your sleigh - do not sit down!

And some of them gloat:

Know your cricket pole!

The Ivanychi lived in this order, they lived and finally lived to the point that they put all the dots over the "i", every one! And the Ivanychs have nothing more to do!

And then the Circumstances see that all this is useless, and they ordered the strictest law to be published throughout the country:

“From now on, it is forbidden to dot the “i” everywhere, and no dots, except for censorship ones, should exist in the appeal of the townsfolk. Those guilty of violating this are subject to the punishment provided for by the most cruel articles of the Criminal Code.

Stunned Ivanychi! What to do?

They are not trained in anything else, only one thing they could, and even then it is forbidden!

And so, gathering secretly, two by two, in dark corners, they reason in a whisper, like Poshekhontsy in a joke:

Ivanych! And what if, God forbid, God forbid?

Well?

I'm not something, but still? ..

Let God knows what, and then - for nothing! And not that! And you say - what!

Yes, am I! I'm nothing!

And no more words can be said!

Kuzmichi lived on one side of the earth, Lukichi on the other, and between them there was a river.

The earth is a cramped place, people are greedy and envious, and therefore there are fights between people because of every trifle; a little that someone did not like - now - cheers! and - in the face!

They will quarrel, defeat each other and let's count profits and losses: they will count - what a miracle ?! - as if they fought well, completely mercilessly, but it turns out - unprofitable!

Kuzmichi argue:

To him, Lukich, the red price is seven kopecks, and it cost six hryvnias to kill him! What?

Lukichi also think:

Alive Kuzmich, even according to his own assessment, is not worth a penny, and to destroy him - ninety kopecks came out!

Like this?

And out of fear of each other decide:

We need to get more weapons, then the war will go faster and the murder will cost less.

And their merchant class, stuffing the purse, shouts:

Guys! Save the fatherland! Fatherland is worth a lot!

We prepared weapons without number, chose the right time and let's kill each other from the world!

They fought, fought, defeated each other, robbed, - again counting profits and losses - what kind of delusion?

However, - say Kuzmichi, - something is wrong with us! The other day, Lukich was killed six hryvnias for a ruble, but now for every ruined soul, sixteen rubles came out!

Be discouraged! And the Lukichs are not happy either.

Seam business! War is so expensive, come on!

But, as stubborn people, they decided:

It is necessary, brothers, to develop deadly equipment more than ever!

And their merchants, stuffing the purse, yelling:

Guys! The Fatherland is in danger!

And they themselves are slowly raising prices for bast shoes and raising them.

Lukichi and Kuzmich developed lethal techniques, defeated each other, robbed, began to count profits and losses - you want to cry!

A living person is valued by no means, and it costs more and more to kill him!

In peaceful days they complain to each other:

This business will destroy us! Lukichi says.

Ruin to the root! - agree Kuzmichi.

However, when someone's duck dived into the water incorrectly, they were torn apart again.

And their merchant class, stuffing the purse, complains:

These banknotes - just tortured! No matter how many you grab - it's not enough!

Kuzmichi and Lukichi fought for seven years, they beat each other mercilessly, they destroy cities, they burn everything, even five-year-old babies were forced to shoot from machine guns. It got to the point that some only had bast shoes left, while others had nothing but neckties; nations go naked.

They defeated each other, robbed - they began to count profits and losses, and both of them were stunned.

They blink their eyes and mutter:

However! No, guys, apparently, a deadly case is definitely not for us! Just look, for every killed Kuzmich, a hundred rubles came out. No, we need to take other measures...

They consulted, and they all went ashore in a herd, and on the other bank the enemies were standing, also in a herd.

Of course, they are embarrassed, they look at each other, and it seems as if they are ashamed. They crumpled, crumpled and shouted from shore to shore:

What's wrong?

We are nothing. And you?

And we are nothing.

We just - so, went out to look at the river ...

They stand, itch, who are ashamed, while others groan in sadness.

Then they shout again:

Do you have diplomats?

There is. And you?

And we have...

Yes, what are we?

And we? And so do we...

We understood each other, drowned the diplomats in the river and let's talk plainly:

Do you know why we came?

Like we know!

A - for what?

You want to reconcile.

Kuzmichi were surprised.

How did you guess?

And Lukichi smirk, they say:

Yes, we ourselves are behind this too! The war is too expensive.

Here is the most!

Even though you are crooks, let's live peacefully, huh?

Hosha, you are also thieves, but we agree!

Let's live like brothers, by God - it will be cheaper!

Everyone became joyful, they danced, jumped, as if possessed, lit fires, girls were kidnapped from each other, horses were stolen and shouted to each other, embracing:

Dear brothers, how good is it, huh? Even though you... so to speak...

And Kuzmichi answered:

Dear ones! We are all one soul and one essence. Hosha you, of course, and that ... well - okay!

Since that time, the Kuzmichi and the Lukichi have been living quietly, peacefully, they have completely abandoned military affairs and are robbing each other lightly, in civilian fashion.

Well, the merchants, as always, live according to God's law...

The stubborn man Vanka lies humbly under the legend, he has worked out, he has been dung - he is resting. The boyar ran up to him, yelling:

Vanka, get up!

And for what?

Let's go save Moscow!

And what is she?

The Pole offends!

Look, shot...

Vanka went to save him, and the demon Bolotnikov shouted to him:

Fool's head, why are you wasting your strength on the boyars, think about it!

I'm not used to thinking, the holy fathers-monks think painfully well for me, - said Vanka.

Saved Moscow, came home, looks - there is no story.

Sighed:

Eki thieves!

He lay down on his right side for good dreams, lay for two hundred years, suddenly - the steward runs:

Vanka, get up!

What is it?

Go save Russia!

And who is her?

Bonaparat about twelve languages!

Look for him like... anathema!

He went, saved, and the demon Bonaparat whispered to him:

What are you, Vanya, trying to do to the masters, it's time for those, Vanyushka, to get out of serfdom!

They'll let you out on your own," said Vanka.

Saved Russia, returned home, looks - there is no roof on the hut.

Sighed:

Eki dogs, they rob everything!

Went to the master, asks:

And what, nothing will happen to me for the salvation of Russia?

And the master asks him:

Do you want - I'll spit it out?

No, don't! Thank you.

Another hundred years he worked and slept; I saw good dreams, but there was nothing to eat. There is money - he drinks, there is no money - he thinks:

“Ehma, it would be nice to have a drink!”

The guard came running, yelling:

Vanka, get up!

What more?

Let's go save Europe!

What is she?

German offends!

And what are they worried about, that one and that one? Would live...

He went and began to save - then the German tore off his leg. Vanka came back on one leg, looking - there was no hut, the children died of hunger, the neighbor carries water on his wife.

Well, it's business! - Vanka was surprised, raised his hand, scratched the back of his head, but he didn’t even have a head!

In the glorious city of Myamlin there lived a little man Mikeshka, he lived without skill, in filth, in poverty and poverty; streams of abominations flow around him, every unclean force is tormented over him, and he, an idler, being in a state of stubborn indecision, does not itch, does not wash, grows wild hair and complains to the Lord:

Lord, Lord! And how badly I live, how dirty! Even pigs - and they laugh at me. You forgot me, Lord!

She complains, sheds her fill, goes to bed and - dreams:

“If only the evil spirits would give me some little reformishness for my humility and squalor for my sake! I would like to wash, clean ... "

And the evil spirit mocks him even more, postponed the execution of all natural laws until the arrival of “better times” and daily acts according to Mikeshka with short circulars like this:

“Silence. And those guilty of violating this circular are subject to administrative eradication even to the seventh generation.

“It is prescribed to sincerely love the authorities. And those guilty of not doing this are subjected to ... "

Mikeshka reads circulars, looks around, sees: in Myamlin - they are silent, in Dremov - they love the authorities, in Vorgorod - the inhabitants steal bast shoes from each other.

Mikeshka groans:

God! What is this life? If only something happened...

And suddenly - the soldier came!

It is known that the soldier is not afraid of anything, - he dispersed the evil spirits, he stuffed it into dark cellars, into deep wells, drove it into the hole in the river, put his hand into his bosom, - pulled out a million rubles and - the soldier does not feel sorry for anything! - gives Mikeshka:

Get it, poor guy. Go to the bathhouse, wash yourself, clean up, be a man - it's time!

He gave the soldier a million and went home, as if he never existed!

Please don't forget that this is a fairy tale.

Mikeshka was left with a million in his hands - what should he do? He had long been weaned from any business by circulars, he knew only one thing - to complain. However, he went to the bazaar in the red row, bought himself a kumach for his shirt and, by the way, for his pants, put on new clothes on dirty skin, shuffles through the streets day and night, weekdays and holidays, fordybachit, boasts - hat on one side, brains - too .

I-hundred, - he says, - for a long time I could, but I didn’t want to. We are a hundred, myamlintsy, a big people, we are not more afraid of evil spirits than fleas. I wanted it, and it's over.

Mikeshka walked for a week, walked for a month, sang all the songs he knew, and “Eternal Memory” and “Rest with the Saints,” he was tired of the holiday, and he was reluctant to work. And it became boring out of habit: everything is somehow wrong, everything is not right, police officers - no, the bosses are not real, recruited from neighbors, it’s not good, unusual to tremble before anyone.

Mikeshka grumbles:

Previously, with evil spirits, there was more order. And the streets were cleaned on time, and at every intersection there was a lawful policeman. It happened - you go somewhere, you go, and he orders: keep to the right! And now - wherever you want to go, no one will say anything. Somehow you can come to the very edge ... Look, some have already reached ...

And more boring than Mikeshka, more and more sick. He looks at a million, but he is angry:

What is a million to me? Others have more! If they would give me a billion at once, well, then still ... Otherwise - a million! Heh! What will I do with him, with a million? Now even a chicken walks like an eagle, because - she, a chicken, costs sixteen rubles! And I only have a million...

Here Mikeshka was delighted that there was a reason for the usual complaints - he walks along the dirty streets, yelling:

Give me a billion! I can't do anything! What is this life? The streets are not cleaned, the police - no, everywhere is a mess! Give me a billion, otherwise I don’t want to live!

An old mole crawled out of the ground and said to Mikeshka:

Fool, what are you yelling at? Who are you asking? After all, you are asking yourself!

And Mikeshka - his own:

I need a billion! The streets are not cleaned, matches are roads, there is no order ...

Once upon a time there was a woman, let's say - Matryona, she worked for someone else's uncle, let's say - for Nikita, with his relatives and with many different servants.

It was bad for the woman, Uncle Nikita did not pay any attention to her, although he boasted to the neighbors:

My Matryona loves me, - what I want, I do with her! An exemplary animal, submissive like a horse...

And the drunken, impudent servant Nikitina offends Matryona every hour, then he robs her, then he beats her, or simply, out of nothing to do, he abuses her, but among themselves he also says:

Well, Matryona is our butterfly! Such that, sometimes, I even feel sorry for her!

But, regretting in words, in fact they still continued to torture and rob.

In addition to these, harmful, many useless people surrounded Matryona, sympathizing with Matryonin's long-suffering; they look at her from the side and are touched:

You are our long-suffering, miserable!

Some, in complete admiration, exclaimed:

You, - they say, - it is impossible to measure even with a arshin, how great you are! And with the mind, - they say, - you can’t understand you, in you, - they say, - you can only believe!

And Matryona, like a bear, breaks down any work from day to day, from century to century, and everything is to no avail: no matter how hard it works, uncle's servants will take everything away. Drunkenness around, women, debauchery and all sorts of dirty tricks - it's impossible to breathe!

And so she lived, she works and sleeps, and in her spare moments she laments to herself:

"God! Everyone loves me, everyone pities me, but there is no real man! If only some real one would come, take me in strong hands, and love me, a woman, with all his strength - I would give birth to such children for him, Lord!

Cries, but nothing else can!

A blacksmith was pouring in on her, but Matryona did not like him, a man of unreliable appearance, smoked all over, of a daring character and speaks incomprehensibly, as if he even boasts:

Only, - he says, - in ideological unity with me, you, Matryosha, will be able to move to the next stage of culture ...

And she told him:

Well, what are you, father, where are you going! I don’t even understand your words, besides, I’m great and plentiful, but you can hardly be seen!

And so she lived. Everyone pities her, and she pities herself, but there is no sense in this.

And suddenly - the hero came. He came, drove Uncle Nikita with his servants and announced to Matryona:

From now on, you are completely free, and I am your savior, like George the Victorious from an old penny!

Matrona looks - and indeed she is free! Of course, she was happy.

However, the blacksmith says:

And I am a savior!

“It’s him out of jealousy,” Matryona realized, and out loud she says:

Of course, and you, father!

And they lived, three, with cheerful pleasures, every day - then a wedding, then a funeral, every day they shout cheers. Uncle Chelyadin's Mokey felt himself a Republican - hurray! Yalutorovsk and Narym declared themselves the United States, also - hurray!

For two months they lived soul to soul, they simply drowned in joy, like flies in a ladle of kvass, but suddenly - in Holy Russia everything is done all of a sudden! - suddenly - the hero is bored!

He sits opposite Matryona and asks:

Who freed you? I?

Well, of course you are, honey!

And I? - says the blacksmith.

After a while, the hero again tortures:

Who freed you - me or not?

Lord, - says Matryona, - yes you are, you are the very one!

Well, remember!

And I? - asks the blacksmith.

Well, and you... Both of you...

Both? - says the hero, smoothing his mustache. - Hm... I-I don't know...

Yes, and he began to interrogate Matryona hourly:

I saved you, fool, or not?

And more and more:

I am your savior or who?

He sees Matryona - the blacksmith, frowning, stepped aside, goes about his business, thieves - steal, merchants - trade, everything goes on in the old way, as in uncle's times, and the hero - is bullied, interrogates every day:

I tell you - who?

Yes, in her ear, yes for braids!

Matryona kisses him, pleases, affectionate speeches says to him:

You are my dear Italian Garibaldi, Cromwell you are my English, Bonaparte French!

And she herself, at night, cries softly:

Lord, Lord! I thought - and in itself something will happen, but this is what happened! ................................................. ...............................

Let me remind you that this is a fairy tale.

NOTES
RUSSIAN TALES
c and k l s c a z o k

First published under the general title "Tales":

• I, II, IV-X - in the journal "Modern World", 1912, number 9 for September;
• III - in the newspaper "Russian Word", 1912, number 290 of December 16;
• XI - in the newspaper "Pravda", 1912. number 131 of September 30;
• XII - in the newspaper "Free thought", 1917, number 1 of March 7;
• XIII - in the newspaper "New Life", 1917, number 1 of April 18;
• XIV - in the newspaper "New Life", 1917, number 5 of April 23;
• XV - in the newspaper "New Life", 1917, number 7 of April 26;
• XVI - in the newspaper "New Life", 1917, number 68 of July 7.

Ten tales (I - II, IV - XI but the numbering of this edition) were published as a separate book by the publishing house of I.P. Ladyzhnikova, Berlin 1912. Tales I - XVI were printed as a separate book by the publishing house "Sail", Petrograd 1918.

The first ten fairy tales (I, II, IV - XI according to the numbering of this edition) were written by M. Gorky in 1912 within one month: M. Gorky announced the beginning of work on fairy tales in mid-January 1912; On February 10, the tales were already handed over to K.P. Pyatnitsky (Diary of K.P. Pyatnitsky).

At the same time, these fairy tales were sent to the editors of the journal "Modern World" and at the same time to the publishing house of I.P. Ladyzhnikov for the preparation of a separate edition, and M. Gorky planned to publish ten more "Russian Fairy Tales" by the fall.

The editor of Sovremenny Mir told M. Gorky that Russian Fairy Tales would only be published in the fall. In response to this, M. Gorky wrote to him:

“When I sent the fairy tales that you call “charming,” I asked, if they liked them, to put them in spring books and three months later I received an answer that it would be better to print them in the fall.

These fairy tales are a new genre for me, it would be very useful for me to know to what extent they are successful - I am not proud, you can speak to me simply and frankly. It seems to me that if fairy tales turned out to be convenient enough for the magazine and valuable from a socio-pedagogical point of view, they could be given twice a year, partly as a feuilleton on the topic of modernity, partly on Russian topics “in general” (Archive of A. M. Gorky).

Of the proposed ten new tales, only one was written in 1912 (III according to the numbering of the present edition); On December 5, 1912, it was sent by M. Gorky to the editorial office of the newspaper "Russian Word" (M. Gorky's letter to I.P. Ladyzhnikov dated December 5, 1912).

After the appearance of the tale in the press, the decadent poet F. Sologub, believing that the tale was directed personally against him and his wife, A. Chebotarevskaya, wrote a letter of protest to M. Gorky. In a response letter on December 23, 1912, M. Gorky rejected the assumption that the fairy tale refers to any specific person. M. Gorky pointed out that the image of Smertyashkin absorbed the features characteristic of decadents in general, including F. Sologub. In 1932 or 1933, in a letter to one of his correspondents, M. Gorky wrote:

“The “fairy tale” does not parody the verses of Sologub, but there is a parody of the verses of 3. Gippius - “Oh, do not believe the hour of the night.” Probably, when I wrote Smertyashkin, I also had in mind the pessimism of Sologub” (Archive of A.M. Gorky).

In the Diary of K.P. Pyatnitsky, the names of the first ten tales are given, obviously, planned by M. Gorky:

1. Philosopher,
2. Poet,
3. The death of a writer
4. national face,
5. landowner,
6. jews,
7. two crooks,
8. Orontius,
9. resistance to evil,
10. Personality.

(Diary of K.P. Pyatnitsky, entry dated February 28, 1912). In the press, fairy tales appeared without titles, with ordinal numbering.

In the manuscript and letters of M. Gorky, the works of this cycle were called "Russian Fairy Tales", but this title was changed by the editor of the journal "Modern World", and all journal publications were called "Fairy Tales". On September 13, 1912, the editor of the Sovremenny Mir magazine wrote to M. Gorky:

“One of these days, the somewhat belated September book of The Modern World will be published. In the first place - your "Russian Tales", which I, frightened by fines and confiscations, allowed myself at the last minute to simply cross into "Tales". In accordance with this, in three cases where the action takes place “in a certain kingdom, in a certain state”, I replaced the words “Russia”, “Russian” interspersed in the text with a country, fatherland, subject” (A.M. Gorky’s Archive).

In separate editions and collections of works, the cycle was published under the general title "Russian Fairy Tales".

Five fairy tales (XII - XVI) were written by M. Gorky in 1917. Tale XII, judging by the note of the editors who first published it, was written on February 25; the next four tales - in March - June 1917.

"Russian Fairy Tales" was included in all collected works.

Published according to the text prepared by M. Gorky for the collected works in the edition "Book", with corrections according to authorized typewritten and early printed texts.

Gorky Maxim

Russian tales

A.M. Gorky

Russian tales

Being ugly and knowing this, the young man said to himself:

I'm smart. I will become a sage. With us it is very simple. And he began to read thick essays - he was really not stupid, he understood that the presence of wisdom is easiest to prove with quotations from books.

And having read as many wise books as needed to become short-sighted, he proudly raised his nose, reddened from the weight of his glasses, and declared to everything that existed:

Well, no, you can't fool me! I see that life

This is a trap set for me by nature!

And love? asked the Spirit of Life.

Thank you, thank God I'm not a poet! I will not enter the iron cage of inevitable duties for a piece of cheese! But still he was not a particularly gifted person and therefore decided to take the post of professor of philosophy. He comes to the Minister of Public Education and says:

Your Excellency, here - I can preach that life is meaningless and that the suggestions of nature should not be obeyed!

The minister thought: "Is it good or not?"

Then he asked:

Do you have to obey orders from superiors?

Definitely - a must! - said the philosopher, respectfully bowing his head wiped by books. For the passions of man...

Well, that's it! Get on the pulpit. Salary - sixteen rubles. Only - if I prescribe to accept even the laws of nature for guidance, look without free-thinking! I will not tolerate! And, thinking, he melancholy said:

We live in such a time that for the sake of the interests of the integrity of the state, perhaps the laws of nature will have to be recognized not only as existing, but also useful - in part!

"Damn it! - the philosopher mentally exclaimed. - You will get to this, how ..."

Out loud, he didn't say anything.

So he got a job: every week he climbed into the pulpit and spoke for an hour to different curly-haired young men:

Gracious sovereigns! A person is limited from the outside, limited from the inside, nature is hostile to him, a woman is a blind instrument of nature, and for all this, our life is completely meaningless!

He was accustomed to thinking this way and often, carried away, spoke beautifully, sincerely; the young students enthusiastically clapped him, and he, satisfied, affectionately nodded his bald head to them, his red little nose gleamed tenderly, and everything went very well.

Dinners in restaurants were harmful to him - like all pessimists, he suffered from indigestion - so he married, dined at home for twenty-nine years; casually, imperceptibly for himself, he produced four children, and after that he died.

Behind his coffin, respectfully and sadly, were three daughters with young husbands and a son, a poet, in love with all the beautiful women of the world. The students sang "Eternal Memory" - they sang very loudly and cheerfully, but - badly; over the grave, the professor's comrades spoke flowery speeches about how harmonious the dead metaphysics was; everything was quite decent, solemn and even touching at times.

So the old man died! - said one student to his comrades when they left the cemetery.

He was a pessimist, another replied.

And the third asked:

Well? Is it?

Pessimist and conservative.

Look, bald! And I didn't even notice...

The fourth student was a poor man, he inquired anxiously:

Will they call us for a wake?

Yes, they were called.

Since the late professor wrote good books during his lifetime, in which he passionately and beautifully proved the aimlessness of life, books were bought well and read them with pleasure - after all, whatever you say, a person loves the beautiful!

The family was well provided for - and pessimism can provide! - the commemoration was arranged by the rich, the poor student ate extremely well and, when he went home, he thought, smiling good-naturedly:

"No - and pessimism is useful..."

And there was another case.

Someone, considering himself a poet, wrote poetry, but for some reason they were all bad, and this made him very angry.

One day, he is walking down the street and sees: a cab driver has lost his whip lying on the road.

An inspiration struck the poet, and immediately an image formed in his mind:

Like a black scourge, in the road dust

Lying - crushed - the corpse of a snake.

Above him - a swarm of flies buzzing anxiously,

Around - beetles and ants.

The links of thin ribs turn white

Through the torn scales...

Snake! You remind me

My love has died...

And the whip stood on the end of the whip and says, swinging:

Well, why are you lying? A married man, you know the letter, but you're lying! After all, your love has not died out, you both love your wife and are afraid of her ...

The poet was angry:

That is none of your business!..

And bad poetry...

And you can't even think of those! You can only whistle, and even then not yourself.

But why are you lying anyway? After all, love hasn't died, has it?

You never know what was not, but it is necessary that there be ...

Oh, your wife will beat you! Take me to her...

How about, wait!

Well, God be with you! - said the whip, twisting like a corkscrew, lay down on the road and thought about people, and the poet went to the tavern, asked for a bottle of beer and also began to think, but - about himself.

"Although the whip is rubbish, but the verses are again rather bad, that's true! It's a strange thing! One always writes bad verses, while the other sometimes succeeds in good ones, how wrong everything is in this world! Stupid world!"

So he sat, drank, and, delving more and more into the knowledge of the world, he finally came to a firm decision: "We must tell the truth: this world is absolutely worthless, and it is even insulting for a person to live in it!" For an hour and a half he thought in this direction, and then composed:

The motley scourge of our passionate desires

Drives us into the rings of the Death-Serpent,

We are wandering in a deep fog.

Ah - kill your desires!

They deceptively beckon us into the distance,

We drag through the thorn of insults,

Along the way - the heart of sorrow will hurt us,

And at the end of it - everyone is killed ...

And stuff like that - twenty-eight lines.

This is clever! - exclaimed the poet and went home, very pleased with himself.

At home, he read poems to his wife - she also liked it.

Only, - she said, - the first quatrain seems to be wrong ...

They will devour! Pushkin also began "the wrong one" ... But - what is the size? memorial service!

Then he began to play with his son: putting him on his knee and throwing him up, he sang in tenor:

Skok-jump

On someone else's bridge!

Oh, I'll be rich

I'll wash mine

I won't let anyone in!

We spent the evening very merrily, and in the morning the poet took the poems to the editor, and the editor said thoughtfully - they are all thoughtful, editors, that's why magazines are boring.

Hm? the editor said, touching his nose. - This, you know, is not bad, and most importantly, it is very in tune with the mood of the time, very much! Hmmm, here you are, perhaps, and found yourself. Well, keep up the good work... Sixteen kopecks a line... four forty-eight... Congratulations!

Alexey Peshkov Born in Nizhny Novgorod in the family of a carpenter (according to another version - the manager of the Astrakhan shipping company I. S. Kolchin) - Maxim Savvatevich Peshkov (1839-1871). Mother - Varvara Vasilievna, nee Kashirina. Orphaned at an early age, he spent his childhood in the house of his grandfather Kashirin (see Kashirin's house). From the age of 11 he was forced to go "to the people"; worked as a “boy” at a store, as a pantry utensil on a steamboat, as an apprentice in an icon-painting workshop, as a baker, etc.

In 1884 he tried to enter Kazan University. He got acquainted with Marxist literature and propaganda work.
In 1888 he was arrested for his connection with the circle of N. E. Fedoseev. He was under constant police surveillance. In October 1888 he entered as a watchman at the Dobrinka station of the Gryase-Tsaritsyno railway. Impressions from staying in Dobrinka will serve as the basis for the autobiographical story "The Watchman" and the story "For the sake of boredom".
In January 1889, by personal request (a complaint in verse), he was transferred to the Borisoglebsk station, then as a weigher to the Krutaya station.
In the spring of 1891 he set off to wander around the country and reached the Caucasus.
In 1892 he first appeared in print with the story Makar Chudra. Returning to Nizhny Novgorod, he publishes reviews and feuilletons in the Volzhsky Vestnik, Samarskaya Gazeta, Nizhny Novgorod Leaflet, and others.
1895 - "Chelkash", "Old Woman Izergil".
1897 - "Former people", "Spouses Orlovs", "Malva", "Konovalov".
From October 1897 to mid-January 1898, he lived in the village of Kamenka (now the city of Kuvshinovo, Tver Region) in the apartment of his friend Nikolai Zakharovich Vasiliev, who worked at the Kamensk paper factory and led an illegal working Marxist circle. Subsequently, the life impressions of this period served as material for the writer's novel "The Life of Klim Samgin".
1899 - the novel "Foma Gordeev", a poem in prose "The Song of the Falcon".
1900-1901 - the novel "Three", a personal acquaintance with Chekhov, Tolstoy.
1901 - "Song of the petrel". Participation in the Marxist workers' circles of Nizhny Novgorod, Sormov, St. Petersburg, wrote a proclamation calling for a fight against the autocracy. Arrested and expelled from Nizhny Novgorod.
In 1902 - A. M. Gorky turned to dramaturgy. Creates plays "Petty bourgeois", "At the bottom".
1904-1905 - writes the plays "Summer Residents", "Children of the Sun", "Barbarians". Meets Lenin. For the revolutionary proclamation and in connection with the execution on January 9, he was arrested, but then released under pressure from the public. Member of the revolution of 1905-1907. In autumn 1905 he joined the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party.
1906 - A. M. Gorky travels abroad, creates satirical pamphlets about the "bourgeois" culture of France and the USA ("My Interviews", "In America"). He writes the play "Enemies", creates the novel "Mother". Due to illness (tuberculosis), Gorky settled in Italy on the island of Capri, where he lived for 7 years. Here he writes "Confession" (1908), where his differences with the Bolsheviks were clearly identified (see "The Capri School").
1908 - the play "The Last", the story "The Life of an Unnecessary Man".
1909 - the novels "The Town of Okurov", "The Life of Matvey Kozhemyakin".
1913 - A.M. Gorky edits the Bolshevik newspapers Zvezda and Pravda, the art department of the Bolshevik magazine Enlightenment, published the first collection of proletarian writers. Writes Tales of Italy.

1900 Yasnaya Polyana
Leo Tolstoy and Maxim Gorky 1912-1916 - A. M. Gorky creates a series of stories and essays that compiled the collection "Across Russia", autobiographical novels "Childhood", "In People". The last part of the My Universities trilogy was written in 1923.
1917-1919 - A. M. Gorky does a lot of social and political work, criticizes the "methods" of the Bolsheviks, condemns their attitude towards the old intelligentsia, saves many of its representatives from Bolshevik repression and hunger. In 1917, having disagreed with the Bolsheviks on the issue of the timeliness of the socialist revolution in Russia, he did not pass the re-registration of party members and formally left it. [Source not specified 85 days]
1921 - A. M. Gorky's departure abroad. A myth developed in Soviet literature that the reason for his departure was the resumption of his illness and the need, at Lenin's insistence, to be treated abroad. In reality, A. M. Gorky was forced to leave because of the aggravation of ideological differences with the established government.
From 1924 he lived in Italy, in Sorrento. Published memoirs about Lenin.
1925 - the novel "The Artamonov Case".
1928 - at the invitation of the Soviet government and Stalin personally, he makes a trip around the country, during which Gorky is shown the achievements of the USSR, which are reflected in the cycle of essays "On the Soviet Union."
1932 - Gorky returns to the Soviet Union. Here he receives an order from Stalin - to prepare the ground for the 1st Congress of Soviet Writers, and for this to carry out preparatory work among them. Gorky created many newspapers and magazines: the Academia publishing house, the book series The History of Factories and Plants, The History of the Civil War, the Literary Study magazine, he wrote the plays Egor Bulychev and Others (1932), Dostigaev and Others » (1933).

Maxim Gorky and Genrikh Yagoda. Not earlier than November 1935, 1934 - Gorky "holds" the 1st Congress of Soviet Writers, makes a keynote speech at it.
In 1925-1936 he wrote the novel The Life of Klim Samgin, which was never completed.
On May 11, 1934, Gorky's son, Maxim Peshkov, unexpectedly dies. A.M. Gorky died on June 18, 1936 in Moscow, having outlived his son by a little more than two years. After his death, he was cremated, the ashes were placed in an urn in the Kremlin wall on Red Square in Moscow. Before cremation, the brain of A. M. Gorky was removed and taken to the Moscow Brain Institute for further study.

The circumstances of the death of Gorky and his son are considered by many to be "suspicious", there were rumors of poisoning, which, however, were not confirmed. At the funeral, among others, the coffin with the body of Gorky was carried by Molotov and Stalin. Interestingly, among other accusations of Genrikh Yagoda at the so-called Third Moscow Trial in 1938, there was an accusation of poisoning Gorky's son. Some publications blame Stalin for Gorky's death [source not specified 85 days]. An important precedent for the medical side of the accusations in the "doctors' case" was the Third Moscow Trial (1938), where among the defendants were three doctors (Kazakov, Levin and Pletnev), who were accused of killing Gorky and others.