Keys treasured from joy. stories

- Well, the Lord will forgive you, son ... Go with a prayer. Yes, look, keep yourself more tired in church. Don't climb the bell tower, or you'll get your coat dirty. Remember that for sewing, three rubles are paid, - my mother admonished me for confession.

Okay! I muttered impatiently, sweeping across the icons.

Before leaving home, he bowed to his parents at the feet and said:

Forgive me, for Christ's sake!

There is a ringing in the street, a blurred road golden from the setting sun, snowy clear streams run, starlings sit on the trees, carts rattle like a spring, and their fractional galloping noises are heard far, far away.

The janitor Davyd breaks loose ice with a crowbar, and it rings so well when it hits a stone.

Where are you dressed up as such a dude? - David asks me, and his voice is special, not twilight, as always, but pure and fresh, as if the spring wind clarified it.

Confess! - I answered importantly.

In a good hour, in a good one, but just don’t forget to tell the priest that you call me “the sweeping martyr,” the janitor grinned. At this I mumbled: okay!

My friends, Kotka Lyutov and Urka Dubin, launch boats out of eggshells in a puddle and make a dam out of bricks.

Urka recently hit my sister, and I really want to go up to him and give him a cuff, but I remember that today is confession and fighting is a sin. Silently, with an inflated look, I pass by.

Look, Vaska has forced something! - Kotka mockingly responds. - In a new coat ... in boots, like a cat ... The shoes are lacquered, and the mug is awful!

And your father still owes fifty kopecks to my father-in-law! - Through my teeth I object and carefully, so as not to splash mud on my patent leather boots, I slowly step on the panel. Kotka does not remain in debt and shouts after me in a sonorous loose voice:

Shoe studs!

Ah, with what pleasure I would have stabbed him in the neck for shoe studs! Forsyth, adiet, shkletina, that his father works in a sausage shop, and my father-in-law is a shoemaker ... A shoemaker, but not a simple one! He sews boots for merchants and fathers deacons, not somehow!

Sad Lenten bells are ringing.

Now... after the confession, I'll show Kotka! - I think, approaching the church.

Church fence. Rough elms and mossy birches. A long green bench bathed in the smoky evening sun. Confessors sit on the bench and wait for the start of Great Compline. Children's voices are heard from the bell tower, scaring away church pigeons. Someone saw me from a height and calls:

Wah-ah! Rash over here!

It’s as if I don’t hear, but I myself really want to climb the old creaky stairs to the bell tower, ring the bell, look at the scattered city with bated breath and watch how thin turquoise twilight envelops the evening earth, and listen to how the evening noises fade and go out .

You wash your clothes and boots, - I sigh, - it’s not good when you are in everything new!

And so, my lights, in this desert, three holy-beautiful elders labored, ”Uncle Osip, the cemetery watchman, tells the confessors.“ They prayed, fasted and worked ... yes ... worked ...

I delve into the words of Uncle Osip, and the desert seems to me, for some reason in the form of a sky without clouds.

Vaska! And will you confess? - Vitka's hoarse voice is heard.

I look at him angrily. Yesterday I lost three kopecks to him, given by my mother to buy laundry soap, for which I flew up on the back of the neck.

Let's go play heads and tails, shall we? - Vitka begs me, showing a nickel.

I won't play with you! You are always cheating!

And so the three elders went to one city to the righteous husband, - continues Uncle Osip.

I look at his long gray beard and think: “If Uncle Osip had not drunk, he would certainly have been a saint! ..”

Great supper. Confession. Thick fragrant dusk. The stern eyes of a priest in dark glasses look into the soul.

Well, sugar, I suppose, dragged without asking? - affectionately asks me.

Afraid to raise my eyes to the priest, I answer in a trembling voice:

No ... we have a high shelf! ..

And when he asked me “what are your sins?”, after a long silence, I suddenly remembered a grave sin. The mere thought of him threw me into heat and cold.

“Here, now,” I was alarmed, “now the priest will find out this sin, drive him out of confession and not give Holy Communion tomorrow ...”

And it seems that someone dark-haired whispers in my ear: repent!

I shift from foot to foot. My mouth twists, and I want to cry bitter repentant tears.

Father ... - I say through sobs, - I ... I ... in Lent ... cracked sausage! Vitka treated me. I didn't want to... but I ate it!..

The priest smiled, overshadowed me with a dark robe, covered with incense smoke, and uttered important, bright words.

Leaving the lectern, I suddenly remembered the words of the janitor David, and again I felt bitter. After waiting for the priest to confess someone, I approached him a second time.

Father! I have another sin. I forgot to say it ... I called our janitor Davyd "the sweeper martyr" ...

When this sin was also forgiven, I walked through the church, with a clear and light heart, and smiled at something.

At home I lie in bed, covered with a sheepskin coat, and through a transparent thin dream I hear how my father is sewing a boot and quietly, with overflows, in the old fashion, sings: "The wave of the sea, which hid ancient times." And outside the window the joyful spring rain rustles ...

I dreamed of the paradise of the Lord. Cherubim sing. Flowers laugh. And as if we were sitting with Kotka on the grass, playing with liquid heavenly apples and asking each other for forgiveness.

Forgive me, Vasya, for calling you shoe studs!

And you, Kitty, forgive me. I scolded you! And all around is the paradise of the Lord and unspeakable joy!

communion

Cooked on Maundy Thursday Easter eggs. According to the old village custom, boiled them in onion feathers, which made them look like a thick color of autumn maple leaf. They smelled in a special way - not like cypress, not like fresh wood, warmed by the sun. Mother did not recognize shop paints in smart boxes.

It's not like a village, - she said, - not according to our custom!

But what about the Grigorievs, you ask her, or the Lyutovs? They are painted at their very different colour, and so pretty that you can not see enough!

The Grigorievs and Lyutovs are city people, and we are from the countryside! And in the countryside, you know yourself, things come from Christ himself...

I frowned and retorted angrily:

Found what to force! They don’t give me any passage anyway: they call me a “hillbilly”.

And don't be upset. Wave a pen at them and reason: the village, say, smells of God's gardens, and the city smells of kerosene and all kinds of evil spirits. This is one. And the other - do not say you, son, such a bad word: force! Do not be afraid of the village language - it also comes from the Lord!

The mother took the eggs out of the pot, put them in a basket that looked like a swallow's nest, crossed them and said:

Put under the icons. On the Bright Matins you will carry the sanctification ...

During Holy Week, they walked more quietly, talked more quietly, and ate almost nothing. Instead of tea, they drank sbiten (hot water with molasses) and ate it with brown bread. In the evening we went to the monastery church, where the services were more tired and stricter. From this church, the mother brought the other day the words she had heard from a nun:

Fasting is to prayer what wings are to a bird.

Maundy Thursday was all in the sun and blue streams. The sun drank the last snow, and every hour the earth became clearer and more spacious. Rapid drops flowed from the trees. I caught it in the palm of my hand and drank - they say that it will not hurt my head ...

Under the trees there was a drop of snow, and so that spring would come sooner, I scattered it with a shovel along the sunny paths.

At ten o'clock in the morning the big bell was struck for the Thursday Liturgy. They no longer called in Lenten (slowly and mournfully), but with a full, frequent blow. Today we have a "communion" day. The whole family partook of the Holy Mysteries of Christ.

We walked to the church along the river. Ice floes floated on the noisy blue water and broke one against the other. Many gulls were circling, and in their whiteness they resembled flying pieces of ice.

There was a bush with red twigs near the river, and it especially made me think that we have spring, and soon all these brown slopes, hills, gardens and vegetable gardens will be covered with herbs, “spring” (the first flowers) will appear, and every stone and pebble will be warm from the sun.

There was no such thick, black-faced sorrow in the church as on the first three days of Holy Week, when they sang “Behold the bridegroom is coming at midnight” and decorated the chamber.

Yesterday and before, everything was reminiscent of the Last Judgment. Today, warm, slightly calmed grief sounded: is it not from the spring sun?

The priest was not in a black robe, but in blue. The communicants stood in white dresses and looked like spring apple trees - especially girls.

I was wearing a white embroidered shirt, belted with an Athonite belt. Everyone looked at my shirt, and some lady said to another:

Wonderful Russian embroidery!

I was happy for my mother, who embroidered such a beloved shirt for me.

Silver hammers, thin as bird's beaks, sounded alarmingly in the soul when they sang before the great exit:

“Today, Thy secret supper, Son of God, accept me as a partaker: we will not sing a secret to Thy enemy, nor kiss thee like Judas, but like a thief I confess Thee, remember me, Lord, when you come into Thy Kingdom.”

Accept me as a communicant ... - silver words were illuminated in my soul.

I remembered the words of my mother: if you hear joy when you take communion, then know that the Lord has entered into you and created an abode in you.

I anxiously awaited the Holy Sacrament.

Will Christ enter me? Am I worthy? My soul trembled when the Royal Doors opened, a priest with a golden Chalice came out to the pulpit, and the words were heard:

With the fear of God and faith, proceed!

From the window, the sun's rays fell directly into the Chalice, and it lit up with a hot scorching light.

Inaudible, with cross-folded hands, he approached the Chalice. Tears lit up in my eyes when the priest said: "The servant of God partakes for the remission of sins and for eternal life." A golden sun liar touched my lips, and the singers sang, to me, a servant of God, they sang: “Take the body of Christ, taste the source of the immortal.”

On leaving the Chalice, for a long time I did not take away my cross-folded hands from my chest - I pressed the joy of Christ that had settled in me ...

Mother and father kissed me and said:

With the acceptance of the Holy Mysteries!

On this day, I walked as if on soft downy tissues - I did not hear myself. The whole world was heavenly still, overflowing with blue light, and the song was heard from everywhere: “Your Secret Supper ... accept me as a communicant.”

And everyone on earth was sorry, even the snow that I forcibly scattered to burn the sun:

Let him live out his tiny days!

Twelve Gospels

Before the ringing for the reading of the twelve Gospels, I made a red paper lantern, in which I will carry a candle from the passions of Christ. With this candle we will light the lampada and keep it inextinguishable fire until the Ascension.

The gospel fire, - assured the mother, - delivers from sorrow and spiritual darkness!

My flashlight turned out to be so good that I couldn't stand it so as not to run to Grishka and show it to him. He looked at him sharply and said:

Wow, but I'm better!

At the same time, he showed his own, bound in tin and with colored glasses.

Such a lantern, - Grishka convinced, - will not go out in the most furious windmill, but yours will not stand it!

I started spinning: can't I bring the holy flame to the house?

He told his mother about his fears. She calmed down.

It’s not cunning to convey in a lantern, but you try our way, in a village way, in your hands to convey. Your grandmother, it used to be, two miles away, in the very windy season, and across the field, carried the Thursday fire and informed!

The eve of Maundy Thursday was showered with a golden dawn. The ground was getting colder, and the puddles were covered with crisp ice. And there was such silence that I heard how a jackdaw, wanting to drink from a puddle, broke a thin frost with its beak.

How quiet! mother remarked. She thought about it and sighed.

On such days always... It is the earth that sympathizes with the sufferings of the King of Heaven!..

It was impossible not to shudder when the round sound of the cathedral bell rolled across the quiet land. He was joined by the silver, as if chest ringing of the Znamenskaya Church, the Assumption Church responded to him with a murmuring splash, the Vladimirskaya Church with a pitiful groan and the Resurrection Church with a thick cooing wave.

From the sliding ringing of bells, the city seemed to float through the blue twilight, as if big ship and the twilight swayed like veils in the wind, first to one side, then to the other.

The reading of the twelve gospels began. In the middle of the church stood a tall Crucifix. In front of him is a lectern. I stood near the cross, and the head of the Savior in the crown of thorns seemed especially tormented. In warehouses I read Slavic letters at the foot of the cross: “That ulcer was for our sins, and it was tormented for our iniquities.”

I remembered how He blessed the children, how He saved a woman from being stoned, how He who was left by everyone wept in the Garden of Gethsemane - and my eyes grew dim, and I so wanted to go to the monastery ... After the litanies, in which the words touched: Let us pray to the Lord who are traveling, sick and suffering,” they sang in the kliros, as if in one sob:

“Whenever the glorification of the disciple at the washing of the supper, I will be enlightened.”

Candles were lit for everyone, and people's faces became like icons in the lamplight, bright and merciful.

From the altar, along the broad gloomy spills of the Thursday troparion, they carried out a heavy Gospel in black velvet and laid it on a lectern in front of the Crucifixion. Everything became hidden and listening. The twilight outside the windows became bluer and more thoughtful.

With indefatigable sorrow, the “beginning” of the reading of the first Gospel “Glory to Thy Passion, Lord” was laid. The gospel is long, long, but you listen to it without burden, inhaling deeply the breath and sorrow Christ's words. The candle in the hand becomes warm and tender. In her light, too, alive and alert.

During the incense, words were read, as if on behalf of Christ Himself.

“My people, what have I done to you, or to you who are cold, enlighten your blind men, cleanse lepers, raise up a man on a bed. My people, what have I done to you and what do you repay? For manna, gall, for water, for water, for a hedgehog, love me, nail me to the cross.

That evening, close to shudder, I saw how the soldiers took Him, how they judged, scourged, crucified, and how He said goodbye to Mother.

"Glory to Thy longsuffering, Lord."

After the eighth gospel three best singer in our city they stood in elegant blue caftans in front of the Crucifixion and sang "Svetleny".

“The prudent thief in a single hour of paradise has been vouchsafed to you, Lord; Enlighten me and save me with the Tree of the Cross.”

With the lights of candles they left the church into the night. Lights are also coming towards us - they come from other churches. Ice crunches underfoot, a special pre-Easter wind hums, all the churches ring, ice crackles from the river, and in the black sky, so spacious and divinely powerful, there are many stars.
“Perhaps they have finished reading the twelve Gospels there too, and all the saints carry Thursday candles into their heavenly burners?”

Shroud

Good Friday came all sad. Yesterday it was spring, and today it is cloudy, windy and heavy.

There will be cold and blizzards, - beggar Yakov assured him chillily, sitting by the stove, - the river is shu-u-mnaya today! The kolyshen walks on it like that! Bad sign!

According to a long-standing custom, before the removal of the Shroud, one was not supposed to eat or drink, they did not kindle a fire in the oven, they did not prepare Easter food, so that the sight of the quick did not darken the soul with temptation.

Do you know how Easter was called in ancient tales? - Yakov asked me. - You don’t know. "Svetozar-Day". Good words the old people had. Wise ones!

He lowered his head and sighed.

It's good to die under Light! You will go straight to heaven. All sins will be removed!

It’s good, it’s good, I thought, but it’s a pity! Still, I want to break my fast earlier and eat various kinds of food... to see how the sun plays... to roll the eggs, to ring the bells!...

At two o'clock in the afternoon they began to gather for the removal of the Shroud. In the church stood the tomb of the Lord, decorated with flowers. On the left side of it there is a large old icon "Lamentation of the Virgin". The Mother of God will watch how Her Son is buried and cry... And He will console Her with the words:

Do not weep for Me, Mother, seeing in the grave... I will rise and be glorified...

Vitka stood next to me. His mischievous eyes and brisk hands became quiet. He sighed a bit and thought about it. Grishka also came up to us. His face and hands were in multi-colored paints.

Are you so smeared? - asked him. Grishka looked at his hands and replied proudly:

Painted a dozen eggs!

Your face is in red and blue stains! Vitka pointed out.

Yah!? Spit and wipe!

Vitka took Grishka aside, spat in his palm, and began wiping Grishka's face, smearing it even more.

A girl with long blond braids, standing not far from us, looked at Grishka and laughed.

Go, wash up, - I whispered to him, - I don’t have the strength to look at you. You stand like a zebra!

On the kliros they sang a stichera, which explained to me why today there is no sun, birds do not sing, and a hoist walks along the river:

“The whole creation is changed by fear, seeing You hanging on the cross, Christ, the Sun is darkened, and the ground of the foundation is shaking, all compassion for the Creator. By the will of us, endured, Lord, glory to Thee. Time was approaching the removal of the Shroud.

They sang touchingly and tenderly with a barely audible lake-like pure splash. “You who are dressed in light like a robe, take down Joseph from the tree with Nicodemus, and seeing the dead, naked, unburied, we will perceive compassionate lamentation.”

Fire stretched from candle to candle, and the whole church became like the first morning dawn. I really wanted to light a candle from the girl standing in front of me, the same one who laughed at the sight of Grishka's face.

Embarrassed and red, I touched the Candle to its flame, and my hand trembled. She looked at me and blushed.

The priest and the deacon were censing around the altar on which the Shroud lay. While singing “Noble Joseph,” she began to be taken out to the middle of the church, to the tomb prepared for her. The richest and most honored people in the city helped Batiushka to carry the Shroud, and I thought:

Why rich? Christ loved poor people more!

Batiushka was giving a sermon, and again I thought: “No words are needed now. Everything is clear, and without that it hurts.

The involuntary sin of condemnation before the tomb of the Lord embarrassed me, and I said to myself: "I won't do it again."

When it was all over, they began to come up to venerate the Shroud, and at that time they sang:

“Come, let us bless Joseph the Ever-Memorable, who came to Pilate in the night ... Give me this strange one, his crafty disciple betrayed to death” ...

In deep thought, I walked home and repeated the words that had sunk deep into me:
“We worship with Your Passion Christ and the Holy Resurrection.”

Easter Eve

The morning of Holy Saturday smelled of Easter cakes. When we were still sleeping, mother busied herself by the stove. The room was tidied up for Easter: snow curtains hung on the windows, and a long towel embroidered with cockerels hung in the middle on the image of the "Twelfth Feasts" with the Resurrection of Christ. It was about five o'clock in the morning, and in the room there was an unusually tender amber light, which I had never seen before. For some reason, it seemed that the Kingdom of Heaven was flooded with such light... From amber, it gradually turned into golden, from golden to ruddy, and finally, solar veins like straws began to stream on icon cases.

Seeing me awake, my mother began to fuss.

Hurry up soon! Be a father. Soon they will announce to the Savior's burial!

Never in my life have I seen such a magnificent miracle as the sunrise!

I asked my father, walking beside him along the echoing and fresh street:

Why do people sleep when early is so good?

The father did not answer, but only sighed. Looking at this morning, I wanted to never leave the earth, but to live on it forever - a hundred, two hundred, three hundred years, and so that my parents would definitely live as long. And if you happen to die, so that there, in the fields of the Lord, we also will not be separated, but be next to each other, look from the blue height at our small land where our life has passed, and remember it.

Tyat! Will we all be together in the next world?

Apparently not wanting to upset me, my father did not answer directly, but in a roundabout way (moreover, he firmly took my hand):

You will know a lot, you will grow old soon! - and whispered to himself with a sigh: "Our parted life!"

An extraordinary funeral service was performed over the tomb of Christ. The two priests alternately read the “blameless ones”, mourning the Lord’s death in wondrous words:

“Jesus, the saving Light, you hid in a dark tomb: about inexpressible and inexpressible patience!”

“Under the earth you hid, like the sun now, and at night you were covered with death, but shine brightly on the Savior.”

They performed incense, buried the deceased Lord, and again read "blameless."

"Thou hast entered, O Light-Maker, and with Thee shall the Light of the sun enter."

“In the clothes of reproach, the adornment of all, clothed, even establish the sky and adorn the earth wonderfully!”

The singers came out from the kliros. They stood in a semicircle near the Shroud and after the exclamation of the priest: “Glory to Thee who showed us the Light,” they sang the “great doxology” - “Glory to God in the highest” ...

The sun was already completely open from the morning robes and shone in all its diva. Some kind of wild bird hit the window glass with its beak, and beads from the night snow ran from the roofs.

While singing the funeral, “with a howl”, - “Holy God”, with lit candles, they began to carry the Shroud around the church, and at that time the bells rang back.

There is no breeze or noise outside, the earth is soft - soon it will be completely saturated with the sun ...

When they entered the church, everyone smelled of fresh apples.

I heard someone whisper to another:

Drunk psalmist Valentin Semigradsky, an inhabitant of a doss house, was famous for his rare “talent” to shock listeners by reading proverbs and the apostle. In big church days he was hired by merchants for three rubles to read in the church. In a long coat resembling a cassock, Semigradsky, with a large book in trembling hands, went up to the Shroud. His always dark face, with a heavy, furry look, was now inspired and bright.

With a wide, strong roar, he proclaimed:

"The Prophecies of Ezekiel Reading"...

With excitement, and almost with fear, he read in his powerful voice about how the prophet Ezekiel saw a large field strewn with human bones, and how he asked God in anguish: “Son of man! Will these bones come to life? And it seemed to the eyes of the prophet - how dead bones stirred, clothed in living flesh and ... stood before him "a great cathedral" of those who had risen from the graves ...

They returned from the burial of Christ with candles. With this light, the mother lit up a lampada “for remembrance” of the deceased relatives before the parental blessing of the Kazan Mother of God". There were already two fires in the house. The third lampada, the largest and most beautiful, made of red glass, we will light before Easter matins.

If you are not tired, - said the mother, preparing the cottage cheese Easter (“Oh, I would rather break the fast! - I thought, looking at the sweet tempting cottage cheese”), then go to mass today. There will be a rare service! When you grow up, you will remember such a service!

Fragrant Easter cakes with pink paper flowers, red eggs and scattered willow twigs lay on the table. All this was illuminated by the sun, and I became so cheerful that I sang:
- Tomorrow is Easter! Passover of the Lord!

Current page: 1 (total book has 20 pages)

Vasily Nikiforov-Volgin
Keys cherished from joy

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Foreword

Vasily Akimovich Nikiforov was born in 1901 in the village of Marku shi, Kalyazinsky district, Tver province, into a simple Russian family. He could not get a good education: after studying at parochial school the family did not have the means to send a talented child to a gymnasium. Vasily had to work: in the field and in a shoe shop. In addition, the years of his growing up were the time of the war: first - the First World War, then - the Civil War. All this time, the family of Vasily Nikiforov lives in Narva, not far from the places of military operations. Against this background of disasters and hardships, the writer's natural talent, his indefatigable thirst for learning and incomparable love for the Motherland stand out especially brightly.

We can say that the Church became the main school for Vasily Nikiforov. Piety, brought up by the mother, then teaching in the parochial school, after that - serving as a psalmist - all this brought up in young man the spiritual basis on which his literary talent and deep understanding of classical Russian literature grew.

In 1917, without leaving Narva, Vasily Nikiforov became an emigrant - a resident of independent Estonia. However, the spiritual connection with Russia remained: it was no accident that he signed his articles, stories and essays with the pseudonym V. Volgin - in honor of the great Russian river, near which he spent his childhood. In 1920, Nikiforov-Volgin participated in the creation of the Union of Russian Youth, which was held in Narva literary evenings and concerts. A year later, he publishes his first article, Do Your Duty! in the Tallinn newspaper Posledniye Izvestia and soon began to work full-time as a journalist and editor. Later, he became one of the founders of the Russian sports and educational society "Svyatogor", and then - the Russian Student Christian Movement. Recalling the 1920s and his participation in the RSHD in the Baltics, Archbishop John (Shakhovskoy) of San Francisco wrote in his old age that that unforgettable period was "the religious spring of the Russian emigration."

At the RSHD, Nikiforov-Volgin met Mikhail Ridiger, a resident of Tallinn, a participant in the theological and pastoral courses, which were opened in the 1930s by Archpriest John the Epiphany (future Bishop Isidore of Tallinn). As an archival photograph testifies, Vasily Akimovich was also familiar with the son of M.A. Ridiger, the future His Holiness Patriarch Moscow and All Russia Alexy II.

By the mid-1930s, V.A. Nikiforov-Volgin is already a well-known writer. The magazine "Illustrated Russia" awards him the first prize for the story "Bishop". The Tallinn publishing house "Russian Book" publishes two collections of stories by Nikiforov-Volgin - the bright book "Birthday Earth" in 1937 and, a year later, the tragic "Road Staff".

The style of V.A. Nikiforov-Volgin is unusual - in a simple, almost modern language“lightnings of luminous words” are intertwined - sublime Church Slavonic words and many half-forgotten expressions from the depths of folk, “village” speech. This virtuoso mastery of the richness of the Russian language has nothing to do with aesthetic narcissism; the lexical diversity of these stories is combined with their accessibility for the general reader. The subject of V.A. Nikiforov-Volgin is quite diverse, but no matter what he writes about - about children's pranks, ancient customs or terrible disasters, each of his lines is imbued with love for Russia - it seems to be so close, but at the same time infinitely distant and inaccessible. The Russia we have lost.

In the summer of 1940, a Soviet authority. Soon V.A. Nikiforov-Volgin was arrested by the NKVD and sent on a stage to Kirov. On December 14, 1941, Vasily Akimovich Nikiforov was shot "for publishing books, pamphlets and plays of slanderous, anti-Soviet content." The exact place of his burial at the Petelinsky cemetery, where the victims of the Red Terror are buried, is unknown.

* * *

Works by V.A. Nikiforov-Volgin in this collection are divided into four parts.

The first of them - "Keys Treasured from Joy" - includes stories in which the writer speaks with inimitable sincerity and simplicity about the first spiritual and worldly experience of a child. The texts are not arranged in the order of their writing, but in the order of growing up and churching of their young hero.

Help me release a song to freedom contains stories for high school students and adults. The talent of Nikiforov-Volgin is revealed here in different genres: an ironic essay, a lyrical thought about the forever bygone antiquity, a deep story about saints and sinners who live among us.

“Woe to your Motherland” is a collection of stories about the tragic fate of Russia during the years of the bloody revolution, the Civil War, and the persecution of the Church. Soul-piercing stories of human suffering are tinged with hope. The humility and faith of innocent victims often leads cruel tormentors to sincere repentance.

The same theme is continued by V. A. Nikiforov-Volgin’s story “The Road Staff”, which is a separate, final part of this edition.

Keys cherished from joy

Vaska and Grishka

In the back yard, overgrown with nettles and thistles and cluttered with kerosene and herring barrels of the merchant Danilov, Grishka Gvozdev and I lie on the roof of an old squat shed and bask in the sun.

FROM big yard, built up around with old rotten houses, a lingering noise with various shades and echoes comes to us without ceasing.

The sonorous voices of the children are heard. The Jewess Phryne screeches furiously at someone. Apke the Jewess bursts into heart-rending weeping. Machines rumble in Melnikov's printing house. The janitor Uncle Davyd smashes someone - “there is nothing worse”: “A damned man! .. An embarrassment! .. Inflate you with a mountain, an Ethiopian idol ...” - his words are carried by black birds in the sultry air. From the basement of the tinsmith Shmotkin, frequent, hurried sounds of tapped tin run.

At Shmotkin's, Kotka Yezhov and I recently pulled jelly from the window. We ate it in the backyard, and put the jelly plate back on the window. For some reason, Shmotkin doesn't like me and calls me "townsman." A drunken, discordant rumble, the groans of an out-of-tune button accordion, and somewhere a shrill whistle of a policeman is heard from the windows of the pub.

And above all these sounds, so cutting the ear, coloring our yard in some dusty tones, floated from the shoemaker's workshop Karpin the friendly song of the artisans to the fractional accompaniment of hammers tapping the skin.

Like a golden spark, the song is in the air and paints our noisy, foul-smelling yard in bright golden colors ...

The song of the artisans reminds me of the spacious fields of our abandoned village, the Duma forest with reserved tales, the turbulent river, the old-fashioned grandfather's house and the golden-domed old church, dressed in mosses and herbs, with melody bells,

I close my eyes, and it seems to me in a reddish haze: here I am at grandfather Philip in the upper room. I sit at a long oak table, in a burgundy shirt, girded with an Athos belt, smeared with wooden oil, and I crush rich rye cakes on both cheeks.

My grandmother is sitting next to me, looking at me, so affectionate and bright, and saying lovingly:

- Eat, Vasenka, eat. Do not listen to anyone ... Eat, son, your fill ...

The chamber is clean and tidy. In front of the image of the Burning Bush, the grandfather kneels with a ladder in his hand and raises tender eyes to him. Near the grandfather, a cat playfully bustles, nicknamed for its ragged appearance, the Fringed. The cat purrs affectionately, rubbing its muzzle stained with soot against grandfather's belly. Grandfather reads his prayers, frowns at the cat and tries to drive him away with his sinewy hand. And the cat does not lag behind the grandfather. Know the bustle between the legs and purrs, raising his tail like a pipe. Grandfather endures, endures, finally, incensed, grabs the cat by the scruff of the neck and throws him to the very threshold.

- Take him away, you restless dog! Grandpa screams furiously at Grandma without getting up from his knees. - Look stuck, devilry!.. He won't let God pray, the Astrakhan camel. So the cat's muzzle wriggles. He has no breakthrough!

Grandma throws the cat out the door. And grandfather, still calm and touching, tiredly recites prayers according to the old, wax-stained Clockwork. The words of the grandfather's prayer fall weightily, sedately, judiciously, like nickels falling into a church mug.

Outside the window, the kids on the dusty road are playing money and have long been calling me to the street with ringing inviting voices ...

- Leuchtweiss Cave! Are you sleeping, right? - Grishka Gvozdev, my soulmate, nicknamed “sweet” for his thinness, pushes me in the side. I call him "Captain Nemo".

Let's smoke, shall we? - it is important, how big, Grishka sings, reaching into the pocket of his wide blue trousers and taking out a shag in a bag from under the coffee pot instead of a pouch.

We clumsily roll up the “kruchonka” and enjoy a puff of smoke.

- Captain Nemo! Let's go down the ocean to California to Alaska. And the weather is conducive to that. Right word! - I turn to Grishka, blowing smoke upwards in rings.

“Captain Nemo” calmly listened to me, dragged on “the last time” with a greasy cigarette butt and importantly muttered through his teeth:

– Leuchtweiss Cave!.. You are now in a state of decisive insanity! - Grishka tries to speak through his nose “in a lordly way” and “in a noble way” spreads his dirty fingers in front of his clumsy nose.

- Now, Leuchtweiss Cave, the northeast monsoon is blowing with heavy rains. Our little pirogues may be in danger of a hurricane ... It is madness of you to go under such circumstances through the elements ...

Grishka looks down at me with authoritative condescension, screwing up his already narrow cunning eyes. I look at Grishka with respect and involuntarily agree with his arguments, despite the fact that the weather is fine in June. The sun is laughing in the languid blue sky, and, apparently, no northeast monsoon with heavy rains threatens.

I want to object to Grishka so as not to lose sight of his learning and show that I understand something about monsoons and various elements.

“Our pirogues cannot be threatened by a spontaneous monsoon, this ... as it were, the most that neither is,” it is important, I say with a pout.

- Not pies, but pies! - Grishka corrects me and does not give me the opportunity to express my meteorological considerations.

“Well, anyway, my friend. Leuchtweiss Cave, I accept your offer. Let's go. If the monsoon comes along with heavy rains, we can take refuge on Whiteface Island in Uncle Tom's cabin.

* * *

They gathered in a noisy noisy crowd to the river, to the pier itself, where boats stand on the pier. Here is Kotka Yezhov, and Folke Shmotkin, Filka Riukhin, and Grishka and I.

I don’t know for what purpose I stole Tyatkin’s leather from the pantry, and from home a shoe knife from Tyatkin’s workbench. I have a gomzul in my pocket 1
Hunk (dial.).

Pie with cabbage.

For greater importance, Grishka threw a belt over his shoulder and armed himself with a broken stick from under the mop. On his head is a straw hat with a hole in the top, and from there a strand of Grishka's hair looks fervently.

Laughing bright day caressed by the sun. The river plays with pure silvery swell. Knocking, noisy, screeching on the other side of the sawmill. The winch rumbles. Axes are baled on rafts and songs are heard. Anchor chains on the wadded pier chime busily, and the shrill whistle of the steamer stirs the sultry air.

We get into a big spacious boat. All our pleasure is to sway on it and, with the help of a long chain tied to the pier, three arshins to sail to the right or left.

Grishka with a strong blow pushed the boat away from the pier in full confidence that, as always, it was chained to the shore, and the boat, fortunately for Grisha and me, for some reason was untied, and we inaudibly, without a rudder or oars, glided forward, following behind the windings of a lively river, bypassing the shore, the pier, the bathhouse ...

- Lebyata, what is it? Look, is there a boat? .. Let's sink without oars! Kotka whimpered plaintively and tried to move into the water.

- Hey, you! .. Vaska and Grishka ... Glad, devils! .. Where are you going? Look, let go! – attacked us and others.

The boat floats silently, gently swaying on small, gentle waves. The beautiful outlines of the city are floating past in a frame of cheerful greenery. Familiar houses, the old walls of the fortress seem wonderfully changed to us. An uneasy joy in my heart.

We swam out into the middle of the river. They pass by us in boats, look at us and laugh.

We have already become accustomed to our position. Laughter, jokes are scattered along the river with golden sparkles. We scoop up water with our hands, splash ourselves and wash our grubby, unwashed faces for weeks.

Grishka from the belt depicted a kind of binoculars and, frowning, concentrated, surveys the surroundings; from time to time he jumps up at us and pronounces importantly, screwing up his roguish eyes from the sun.

- Now the Cape of Good Hope will be! .. The island of the "White Faces" is already visible. Uncle Tom sits on the shore and fries fish over a fire. The northeast monsoon does not threaten our pies! ..

Kotka lay down on the bottom of the boat and looks, enchanted, at the blue sky with naive rustic eyes. Filka scooped water into his cap and drinks with pleasure in large sips, pouring over his shirt.

- Would you like some whiskey? he offers us with comic antics.

Folke took off Filkin's cap and poured all the water down his collar. Filka gets angry and grabs Folka by the hair.

And I'm sitting in the stern in Tyatkin's leather, pissing a cabbage pie on both cheeks and dreamily looking into the blue distance, similar to a strip of the sea.

And it seems to me, a grimy little boy, that behind these blue forests, fields and houses lies another country - the best and brightest in the world - this is my village. And in this country-village it is very good and affectionate. My grandmother is there, and she bakes very "tasty arzhan" cakes, and grandfather Philip, the wisest in the world, who sings ancient mournful verses and importantly tells outlandish tales ...

- Guys! Look... the whale is crawling! Grishka says.

- To catch! .. Show the girls in the yard.

A dead burbot swims belly up past the boat. Pulled out with laughter.

- Lebyata! .. Look ... Uncle Galasim is coming for us! - Kotka says with horror, about to cry.

And indeed, to our horror, we see a boat approaching us with a tall carrier Gerasim with hairy iron fists and stern eyes under thick, shifted eyebrows.

We are shackled by fear, confusion; and, as if they were not alive, they began to wait for Uncle Gerasim. Kotka let out a whining cry.

Uncle Gerasim's boat calmly drove up to us.

Collided sides.

“Let’s chain… devils!” - Barked at us, confused, Uncle Gerasim.

We were towed to the pier. Grishka was the first to get out of the boat and tried to speak affectionately to Gerasim:

- And what was it not hard for you, uncle, to carry us?

Gerasim, instead of answering how he would hit Grishka on the back of the head, Grishka just rolled along the slippery pier and landed with one foot in the river and soaked his trousers.

With fear, I also began to crawl out in Tyatkin's leather jacket and with a dead burbot in my hand. A slap in the back of the neck flew in too.

I'm walking down the street. Grishka boasts: “It didn’t hurt me at all.” I carefully carry a burbot in my bosom, and I myself roar with bitter tears. Passers-by look at me and laugh. Apparently, he was good in a long leather jacket and with a dead burbot under his arm.

Came home late in the evening. I got a hefty blow from the father for the leather and the lost shoe knife.

Grishka's wet trousers dried up and instead of blue color accepted green, and nicknamed Grishka after that "Triton".

Oh, dear stupid time! ..

Love is the book of God

Such mischievous guys as Filippka Morozov and Agapka Bobrikov cannot be found in the whole city. There was also Borka Shpyr, but he was recently sent to a house of correction. They lived on the outskirts of the city in a rotten log house- Windows on the cemetery. The outskirts were famous for drunkenness, fights, theft, and degraded, deposed deacon Daniel - a sazhen growth and a huge voice of a child.

They said about Filippka and Agapka here:

- We've seen a lot of mischievous kids, but we've never seen such brats before!

They were nine years old. The father of one was a rag-picker, and the other was a bookbinding master. Filippka is small, short-legged, pot-bellied, with a patch of lips and a cockerel on a large swirling head. Always puffed up and thinking about something. He walked in outlandish trousers - one leg was blue, and the other yellow and with bells. These trousers, as the childish rumor said, he pulled off from the fair booth from the acrobat boy. In his attire, Filippka once entered the church and made the singers laugh so much that they stopped singing. The church watchman led him out. Filippka stood on the porch, spreading his plump hands and muttering in bewilderment:

- Amazing, Marya Dimitrievna!

Agapka was skinny, freckled, keen-eyed and nimble. In winter and summer, he wore his father's jacket and a soldier's peakless cap. He has a military posture. Somewhere I got rusty spurs and attached them to my tattered buttresses. Agapka most of all loves parades and funerals with music. He recently told his mother:

- Don't call me Agapka anymore!

- And how do you order to be called? she asked mockingly.

Agapka jingled his spurs and famously replied:

- Suvorov!

There was all sorts of mischief on their part. For such tricks as pulling off a fish in the market and selling it to some aunt, painting it like a zebra white cat, interrupt Street lights, climb the bell tower and sound the alarm, looked through their fingers and even praised for their bravery.

There was mischief cleaner and meaner, causing scandals throughout the outskirts. The crooked blacksmith Mikhailo was wildly jealous of his ugly and timid wife. Mikhailo is sitting in a pub. Clinking with spurs, Agapka comes up to him and whispers:

- Uncle Mikhailo! Uncle Senya is sitting with your wife, and both are drinking tea!

Burnt with jealousy, Mikhailo takes off and runs home.

- Changer! he growls, advancing on his wife with his fists. - Where is Senka?

She swears and is baptized - she knows nothing. Mihailo, stunned, knocks on the door of Senka, a young shoemaker's apprentice. Senka comes out. Scolding rises, followed by a fight. People are gathering in the yard. The policeman rubs himself into the fight and draws up a protocol. After a heated altercation and fist-waving, it turns out that Senka has nothing to do with it.

“I don’t object to your wife,” he says, “this is an unthinkable thing, since she looks like a sour cucumber and is generally bow-legged and kartoubaya ...

From these expressions the blacksmith again fills with anger:

– Is my wife a cucumber? Is my wife karzubaya? Do you want me to give you a blamba? Ra-az! Whoo!

And the fight starts again. When Daniil was rasstriga, when he got drunk, he persistently and angrily searched for the devil, asking passers-by about him.

“If only I could find it,” he boomed, making his way along the fences, “I would turn it into jelly and free the world from sin, damnation and death!”

Filippka rolled up to Daniil in a soft ball and stuck to him with viscous molasses:

- Uncle deacon, who are you looking for?

“The devil, brother of the seat, the devil that stirs up the whole world!” cried the deacon in despair. Have you seen him, angelic darling?

- I saw it! He's not far away here... Come with me, uncle deacon... I'll show you!

Filippka brought Daniel to the house of the usurer Maxim Zverev.

“He’s a mulberry… in the basement…” Filippka explained in a secret whisper.

Daniel straightened up, rolled up the sleeves of his naked jacket, and crossed himself as he entered the dark lair of the usurer:

- Well, God bless! May God arise and scatter His enemies!

A few minutes later, such an animal cry rose up in the usurer's house that the whole outskirts trembled sharply and sweetly, densely gathering into a crowd.

A short, moth-like old man with a shaggy face twisted with horror flew out of the basement, and Daniil hurried after him.

- Hold Beelzebub! he rumbled with the frenzied brass of his terrible bass. - Free the world from the devil! Prepare for yourself the Kingdom of Heaven!

The dusty and stuffy air of the outskirts was torn apart by the sharp whistle of the policeman, and everyone became cheerful and, as it were, drunk.

For such tricks, the hot father's belt walked on the backs of Agapka and Filippka more than once, and from others it flew up to the neck.

One day an event happened. An attack came on Filippka and Agapka, from which not only they, but the whole outskirts became quiet ...

She came in the form of nine-year-old Nadia, the daughter of the old actor Zorin, who recently settled on the outskirts and in the same yard where the mischievous guys lived. The actor went to taverns and entertained the audience with stories and songs, while Nadia sat at home. Always at the window, always with needlework or a book.

Agapka passed by, looked at the girl, thin, frail, and as if golden from the golden hair falling on her quiet shoulders, and for some unknown reason, everything flared up, ashamed, shuddered at something sharp and radiant that ran before his eyes and seemed to pluck something. then from his soul. Suddenly Agapka was gone, and another appeared, similar to God's book with golden sheets, lying in the altar, or on a light bird flying in the blue skies ... He even covered his face with his hands and quickly ran away.

On the same day, Filippka also saw a golden girl. He boldly approached her and said gravely:

- My name is Philip Vasilyevich!

- Very nice, - the girl rang out with a reed, - and I’m Nadezhda Borisovna ... You have a very beautiful costume, like in the theater ...

Filippka was delighted and pulled up his motley trousers.

After this meeting, his soul became not its own.

He came home and asked his mother for soap - to wash and comb him. That wonder was given:

- Since when?

Filippka replied in an angry voice:

- You are not asked!

Washed and combed out into the yard. Met Agapka. He, too, was washed, as in Easter, but more elegant. A medal hung on a cleaned jacket, and instead of stalks, his father's high boots. They silently looked at each other and blushed.

They vied with each other to look after Nadia. They would bring her flowers, then apples, then seeds, and once Filippka brought Nadya a cup of cranberry jelly. This gift delighted the girl so much that she embarrassedly and joyfully pinned a white chamomile to Filippka's chest. Agapka pouted, gave Filippka a slap on the back of the head and burst into tears of jealousy.

They didn't speak for two days. On the third day Agapka called him and said:

- I want to talk to you!

– What are we talking about? Philippa asked, pursing her lips.

Agapka pulled out a silver kopeck piece from his pocket.

- I see ... ten kopecks!

“It looks like a small coin,” Agapka said, twirling a dime before his eyes, “but how many goodies you can buy with it.” For example, for a penny of Duchess sweets, two pieces, for two pennies a large poppy gingerbread ...

– Oh, it’s delicious, – Filippka could not stand it, closing her eyes, – it melts in your mouth. Lu-yu-blue!

“For three kopecks of halvah, for a kopeck a glass of seeds, for two kopecks of roasted or Chinese nuts,” continued Agapka, playing with a piece of silver like a ball.

Agapka looked at him with a piercing look and solemnly, like “Guak the faithful warrior”, about whom he had read a story, handed Filippka a dime.

- Get it! I give you as the first friend in the world! But I only ask you…” here Agapka's voice trembled. - do not look after Nadia ... I pray to God! I agree?

Filippka waved his hand and shouted sharply, almost with desperation in his voice:

- I agree!

On the money received, Filippka lived in a big way, without denying himself anything.

When he ate all sorts of sweets, so that he began to stir up, he remembered his sold love and was horrified. At night, he was seized with such agonizing melancholy that he could not stand it and burst into tears.

The next day he was ashamed to go out into the street, he ate nothing, sat at the window and looked at the cemetery. There was no one at home. Filippka really wanted to die, and before her death, ask for forgiveness from Nadia, and tell her: “I love you, Nadia, golden braids!”

He felt so sorry for himself that he put his head on the windowsill and howled.

And suddenly a delighted thought wedged into his thoughts about death: “Give back a dime! But where to get it?

Filippka remembered that in his mother's closet there were coins in a box. He held his breath.

“They will fight…” he thought, “but it’s okay, I’ll endure. Don't get used to it!"

Filippka pulled a dime out of the box. Ran out into the street. I found Agapka and told him:

– I changed my mind! Get your dime back!

Vasily Akimovich Nikiforov was born in 1901 in the village of Marku shi, Kalyazinsky district, Tver province, into a simple Russian family. He could not get a good education: after studying at a parochial school, the family did not have the means to send a talented child to a gymnasium. Vasily had to work: in the field and in a shoe shop. In addition, the years of his growing up were the time of the war: first - the First World War, then - the Civil War. All this time, the family of Vasily Nikiforov lives in Narva, not far from the places of military operations. Against this background of disasters and hardships, the writer's natural talent, his indefatigable thirst for learning and incomparable love for the Motherland stand out especially brightly.

We can say that the Church became the main school for Vasily Nikiforov. Piety, brought up by his mother, then teaching at a parochial school, after that - serving as a psalmist - all this brought up in the young man that spiritual basis on which his writing talent and a deep understanding of classical Russian literature grew.

In 1917, without leaving Narva, Vasily Nikiforov became an emigrant - a resident of independent Estonia. However, the spiritual connection with Russia remained: it was no accident that he signed his articles, stories and essays with the pseudonym V. Volgin - in honor of the great Russian river, near which he spent his childhood. In 1920, Nikiforov-Volgin participated in the creation of the Union of Russian Youth, which organized literary evenings and concerts in Narva. A year later, he publishes his first article, Do Your Duty! in the Tallinn newspaper Posledniye Izvestia and soon began to work full-time as a journalist and editor. Later, he became one of the founders of the Russian sports and educational society "Svyatogor", and then - the Russian Student Christian Movement. Recalling the 1920s and his participation in the RSHD in the Baltics, Archbishop John (Shakhovskoy) of San Francisco wrote in his old age that that unforgettable period was "the religious spring of the Russian emigration."

At the RSHD, Nikiforov-Volgin met Mikhail Ridiger, a resident of Tallinn, a participant in the theological and pastoral courses, which were opened in the 1930s by Archpriest John the Epiphany (future Bishop Isidore of Tallinn). As an archival photograph testifies, Vasily Akimovich was also familiar with the son of M.A. Ridiger, the future Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Alexy II.

By the mid-1930s, V.A. Nikiforov-Volgin is already a well-known writer. The magazine "Illustrated Russia" awards him the first prize for the story "Bishop". The Tallinn publishing house "Russian Book" publishes two collections of stories by Nikiforov-Volgin - the bright book "Birthday Earth" in 1937 and, a year later, the tragic "Road Staff".

The style of V.A. Nikiforov-Volgin is unusual - in a simple, almost modern language, "lightnings of radiant words" are woven - sublime Church Slavonic words and many half-forgotten expressions from the depths of folk, "village" speech.

This virtuoso mastery of the richness of the Russian language has nothing to do with aesthetic narcissism; the lexical diversity of these stories is combined with their accessibility to the widest readership. The subject of V.A. Nikiforov-Volgin is quite diverse, but no matter what he writes about - about children's pranks, old customs or terrible disasters, each of his lines is imbued with love for Russia - seemingly so close, but at the same time infinitely distant and inaccessible. The Russia we have lost.

In the summer of 1940, Soviet power was established in Estonia. Soon V.A. Nikiforov-Volgin was arrested by the NKVD and sent on a stage to Kirov. On December 14, 1941, Vasily Akimovich Nikiforov was shot "for publishing books, pamphlets and plays of slanderous, anti-Soviet content." The exact place of his burial at the Petelinsky cemetery, where the victims of the Red Terror are buried, is unknown.

* * *

Works by V.A. Nikiforov-Volgin in this collection are divided into four parts.

The first of them - "Keys Treasured from Joy" - includes stories in which the writer speaks with inimitable sincerity and simplicity about the first spiritual and worldly experience of a child. The texts are not arranged in the order of their writing, but in the order of growing up and churching of their young hero.

Help me release a song to freedom contains stories for high school students and adults. The talent of Nikiforov-Volgin is revealed here in different genres: an ironic essay, a lyrical thought about a bygone antiquity, a deep story about saints and sinners who live among us.

“Woe to your Motherland” is a collection of stories about the tragic fate of Russia during the years of the bloody revolution, the Civil War, and the persecution of the Church. Soul-piercing stories of human suffering are tinged with hope. The humility and faith of innocent victims often leads cruel tormentors to sincere repentance.

The same theme is continued by V. A. Nikiforov-Volgin’s story “The Road Staff”, which is a separate, final part of this edition.

Keys cherished from joy

Vaska and Grishka

In the back yard, overgrown with nettles and thistles and cluttered with kerosene and herring barrels of the merchant Danilov, Grishka Gvozdev and I lie on the roof of an old squat shed and bask in the sun.

From a large yard, built up around with old rotten houses, a long-drawn-out noise with various shades and echoes comes to us without ceasing.

The sonorous voices of the children are heard. The Jewess Phryne screeches furiously at someone. Apke the Jewess bursts into heart-rending weeping. Machines rumble in Melnikov's printing house. The janitor Uncle Davyd smashes someone - “there is nothing worse”: “A damned man! .. An embarrassment! .. Inflate you with a mountain, an Ethiopian idol ...” - his words are carried by black birds in the sultry air. From the basement of the tinsmith Shmotkin, frequent, hurried sounds of tapped tin run.

At Shmotkin's, Kotka Yezhov and I recently pulled jelly from the window. We ate it in the backyard, and put the jelly plate back on the window. For some reason, Shmotkin doesn't like me and calls me "townsman." A drunken, discordant rumble, the groans of an out-of-tune button accordion, and somewhere a shrill whistle of a policeman is heard from the windows of the pub.

And above all these sounds, so cutting the ear, coloring our yard in some dusty tones, floated from the shoemaker's workshop Karpin the friendly song of the artisans to the fractional accompaniment of hammers tapping the skin.

Like a golden spark, the song is in the air and paints our noisy, foul-smelling yard in bright golden colors ...

The song of the artisans reminds me of the spacious fields of our abandoned village, the Duma forest with reserved tales, the turbulent river, the old-fashioned grandfather's house and the golden-domed old church, dressed in mosses and herbs, with melody bells,

I close my eyes, and it seems to me in a reddish haze: here I am at grandfather Philip in the upper room. I sit at a long oak table, in a burgundy shirt, girded with an Athos belt, smeared with wooden oil, and I crush rich rye cakes on both cheeks.

My grandmother is sitting next to me, looking at me, so affectionate and bright, and saying lovingly:

- Eat, Vasenka, eat. Do not listen to anyone ... Eat, son, your fill ...

The chamber is clean and tidy. In front of the image of the Burning Bush, the grandfather kneels with a ladder in his hand and raises tender eyes to him. Near the grandfather, a cat playfully bustles, nicknamed for its ragged appearance, the Fringed. The cat purrs affectionately, rubbing its muzzle stained with soot against grandfather's belly. Grandfather reads his prayers, frowns at the cat and tries to drive him away with his sinewy hand. And the cat does not lag behind the grandfather. Know the bustle between the legs and purrs, raising his tail like a pipe. Grandfather endures, endures, finally, incensed, grabs the cat by the scruff of the neck and throws him to the very threshold.

- Take him away, you restless dog! Grandpa screams furiously at Grandma without getting up from his knees. - Look, you stuck, evil spirits! .. God will not let you pray, the Astrakhan camel. So the cat's muzzle wriggles. He has no breakthrough!

Grandma throws the cat out the door. And grandfather, still calm and touching, tiredly recites prayers according to the old, wax-stained Clockwork. The words of the grandfather's prayer fall weightily, sedately, judiciously, like nickels falling into a church mug.

Outside the window, the kids on the dusty road are playing money and have long been calling me to the street with ringing inviting voices ...

- Leuchtweiss Cave! Are you sleeping, right? - Grishka Gvozdev, my soulmate, nicknamed “sweet” for his thinness, pushes me in the side. I call him "Captain Nemo".

Let's smoke, shall we? - it is important, how big, Grishka sings, reaching into the pocket of his wide blue trousers and taking out a shag in a bag from under the coffee pot instead of a pouch.

We clumsily roll up the “kruchonka” and enjoy a puff of smoke.

- Captain Nemo! Let's go down the ocean to California to Alaska. And the weather is conducive to that. Right word! - I turn to Grishka, blowing smoke upwards in rings.

“Captain Nemo” calmly listened to me, dragged on “the last time” with a greasy cigarette butt and importantly muttered through his teeth:

– Leuchtweiss Cave!.. You are now in a state of decisive insanity! - Grishka tries to speak through his nose “in a lordly way” and “in a noble way” spreads his dirty fingers in front of his clumsy nose.

- Now, Leuchtweiss Cave, the northeast monsoon is blowing with heavy rains. Our little pirogues may be in danger of a hurricane ... It is madness of you to go under such circumstances through the elements ...

Grishka looks down at me with authoritative condescension, screwing up his already narrow cunning eyes. I look at Grishka with respect and involuntarily agree with his arguments, despite the fact that the weather is fine in June. The sun is laughing in the languid blue sky, and, apparently, no northeast monsoon with heavy rains threatens.

I want to object to Grishka so as not to lose sight of his learning and show that I understand something about monsoons and various elements.

- Our pirogues cannot be threatened by a spontaneous monsoon, this ... as it were, the most that neither is, - it’s important, I pronounce with a pout.

- Not pies, but pies! - Grishka corrects me and does not give me the opportunity to express my meteorological considerations.

“Well, anyway, my friend. Leuchtweiss Cave, I accept your offer. Let's go. If the monsoon comes along with heavy rains, we can take refuge on Whiteface Island in Uncle Tom's cabin.

* * *

They gathered in a noisy noisy crowd to the river, to the pier itself, where boats stand on the pier. Here is Kotka Yezhov, and Folke Shmotkin, Filka Riukhin, and Grishka and I.

I don’t know for what purpose I stole Tyatkin’s leather from the pantry, and from home a shoe knife from Tyatkin’s workbench. I have a gomzul in my pocket 1
Hunk (dial.).

Pie with cabbage.

For greater importance, Grishka threw a belt over his shoulder and armed himself with a broken stick from under the mop. On his head is a straw hat with a hole in the top, and from there a strand of Grishka's hair looks fervently.

Laughing bright day caressed by the sun. The river plays with pure silvery swell. Knocking, noisy, screeching on the other side of the sawmill. The winch rumbles. Axes are baled on rafts and songs are heard. Anchor chains on the wadded pier chime busily, and the shrill whistle of the steamer stirs the sultry air.

We get into a big spacious boat. All our pleasure is to sway on it and, with the help of a long chain tied to the pier, three arshins to sail to the right or left.

Grishka pushed the boat away from the pier with a strong blow, in full confidence that, as always, it was chained to the shore, and the boat, fortunately for Grisha and me, for some reason was untied, and we silently, without a rudder and oars forward, following the meanders of a lively river, bypassing the shore, the pier, the bath...

- Lebyata, what is it? Look, is there a boat? .. Let's sink without oars! Kotka whimpered plaintively and tried to move into the water.

- Hey, you! .. Vaska and Grishka ... Glad, devils! .. Where are you going? Look, let go! – attacked us and others.

The boat floats silently, gently swaying on small, gentle waves. The beautiful outlines of the city are floating past in a frame of cheerful greenery. Familiar houses, the old walls of the fortress seem wonderfully changed to us. An uneasy joy in my heart.

We swam out into the middle of the river. They pass by us in boats, look at us and laugh.

We have already become accustomed to our position. Laughter, jokes are scattered along the river with golden sparkles. We scoop up water with our hands, splash ourselves and wash our grubby, unwashed faces for weeks.

Grishka from the belt depicted a kind of binoculars and, frowning, concentrated, surveys the surroundings; from time to time he jumps up at us and pronounces importantly, screwing up his roguish eyes from the sun.

- Now the Cape of Good Hope will be! .. The island of the "White Faces" is already visible. Uncle Tom sits on the shore and fries fish over a fire. The northeast monsoon does not threaten our pies! ..

Kotka lay down on the bottom of the boat and looks, enchanted, at the blue sky with naive rustic eyes. Filka scooped water into his cap and drinks with pleasure in large sips, pouring over his shirt.

- Would you like some whiskey? he offers us with comic antics.

Folke took off Filkin's cap and poured all the water down his collar. Filka gets angry and grabs Folka by the hair.

And I'm sitting in the stern in Tyatkin's leather, pissing a cabbage pie on both cheeks and dreamily looking into the blue distance, similar to a strip of the sea.

And it seems to me, a grimy little boy, that behind these blue forests, fields and houses lies another country - the best and brightest in the world - this is my village. And in this country-village it is very good and affectionate. My grandmother is there, and she bakes very "tasty arzhan" cakes, and grandfather Philip, the wisest in the world, who sings ancient mournful verses and importantly tells outlandish tales ...

- Guys! Look... the whale is crawling! Grishka says.

- To catch! .. Show the girls in the yard.

A dead burbot swims belly up past the boat. Pulled out with laughter.

- Lebyata! .. Look ... Uncle Galasim is coming for us! - Kotka says with horror, about to cry.

And indeed, to our horror, we see a boat approaching us with a tall carrier Gerasim with hairy iron fists and stern eyes under thick, shifted eyebrows.

We are shackled by fear, confusion; and, as if they were not alive, they began to wait for Uncle Gerasim. Kotka let out a whining cry.

Uncle Gerasim's boat calmly drove up to us.

Collided sides.

“Let’s chain… devils!” - Barked at us, confused, Uncle Gerasim.

We were towed to the pier. Grishka was the first to get out of the boat and tried to speak affectionately to Gerasim:

- And what was it not hard for you, uncle, to carry us?

Gerasim, instead of answering how he would hit Grishka on the back of the head, Grishka just rolled along the slippery pier and landed with one foot in the river and soaked his trousers.

With fear, I also began to crawl out in Tyatkin's leather jacket and with a dead burbot in my hand. A slap in the back of the neck flew in too.

I'm walking down the street. Grishka boasts: “It didn’t hurt me at all.” I carefully carry a burbot in my bosom, and I myself roar with bitter tears. Passers-by look at me and laugh. Apparently, he was good in a long leather jacket and with a dead burbot under his arm.

Came home late in the evening. I got a hefty blow from the father for the leather and the lost shoe knife.

Grishka's wet trousers dried up and instead of blue they took on green, and Grishka was nicknamed "Triton" after that.

Oh, dear stupid time! ..

Love is the book of God

Such mischievous guys as Filippka Morozov and Agapka Bobrikov cannot be found in the whole city. There was also Borka Shpyr, but he was recently sent to a house of correction. They lived on the outskirts of the city in a rotten log house - windows on the cemetery. The outskirts were famous for drunkenness, fights, theft, and degraded, deposed deacon Daniel - a sazhen growth and a huge voice of a child.

They said about Filippka and Agapka here:

- We've seen a lot of mischievous kids, but we've never seen such brats before!

They were nine years old. The father of one was a rag-picker, and the other was a bookbinding master. Filippka is small, short-legged, pot-bellied, with a patch of lips and a cockerel on a large swirling head. Always puffed up and thinking about something. He walked in outlandish trousers - one leg was blue, and the other yellow and with bells. These trousers, as the childish rumor said, he pulled off from the fair booth from the acrobat boy. In his attire, Filippka once entered the church and made the singers laugh so much that they stopped singing. The church watchman led him out. Filippka stood on the porch, spreading his plump hands and muttering in bewilderment:

- Amazing, Marya Dimitrievna!

Agapka was skinny, freckled, keen-eyed and nimble. In winter and summer, he wore his father's jacket and a soldier's peakless cap. He has a military posture. Somewhere I got rusty spurs and attached them to my tattered buttresses. Agapka most of all loves parades and funerals with music. He recently told his mother:

- Don't call me Agapka anymore!

- And how do you order to be called? she asked mockingly.

Agapka jingled his spurs and famously replied:

- Suvorov!

There was all sorts of mischief on their part. Such tricks as pulling off a fish in the market and selling it to some aunt, painting a white cat like a zebra, killing street lamps, climbing a bell tower and sounding the alarm, looked through their fingers and even praised for their youth.

There was mischief cleaner and meaner, causing scandals throughout the outskirts. The crooked blacksmith Mikhailo was wildly jealous of his ugly and timid wife. Mikhailo is sitting in a pub. Clinking with spurs, Agapka comes up to him and whispers:

- Uncle Mikhailo! Uncle Senya is sitting with your wife, and both are drinking tea!

Burnt with jealousy, Mikhailo takes off and runs home.

- Changer! he growls, advancing on his wife with his fists. - Where is Senka?

She swears and is baptized - she knows nothing. Mihailo, stunned, knocks on the door of Senka, a young shoemaker's apprentice. Senka comes out. Scolding rises, followed by a fight. People are gathering in the yard. The policeman rubs himself into the fight and draws up a protocol. After a heated altercation and fist-waving, it turns out that Senka has nothing to do with it.

“I don’t object to your wife,” he says, “this is an unthinkable thing, since she looks like a sour cucumber and is generally bow-legged and kartoubaya ...

From these expressions the blacksmith again fills with anger:

– Is my wife a cucumber? Is my wife karzubaya? Do you want me to give you a blamba? Ra-az! Whoo!

And the fight starts again. When Daniil was rasstriga, when he got drunk, he persistently and angrily searched for the devil, asking passers-by about him.

“If only I could find it,” he boomed, making his way along the fences, “I would turn it into jelly and free the world from sin, damnation and death!”

Filippka rolled up to Daniil in a soft ball and stuck to him with viscous molasses:

- Uncle deacon, who are you looking for?

“The devil, brother of the seat, the devil that stirs up the whole world!” cried the deacon in despair. Have you seen him, angelic darling?

- I saw it! He's not far away here... Come with me, uncle deacon... I'll show you!

Filippka brought Daniel to the house of the usurer Maxim Zverev.

“He’s a mulberry… in the basement…” Filippka explained in a secret whisper.

Daniel straightened up, rolled up the sleeves of his naked jacket, and crossed himself as he entered the dark lair of the usurer:

- Well, God bless! May God arise and scatter His enemies!

A few minutes later, such an animal cry rose up in the usurer's house that the whole outskirts trembled sharply and sweetly, densely gathering into a crowd.

A short, moth-like old man with a shaggy face twisted with horror flew out of the basement, and Daniil hurried after him.

- Hold Beelzebub! he rumbled with the frenzied brass of his terrible bass. - Free the world from the devil! Prepare for yourself the Kingdom of Heaven!

The dusty and stuffy air of the outskirts was torn apart by the sharp whistle of the policeman, and everyone became cheerful and, as it were, drunk.

For such tricks, the hot father's belt walked on the backs of Agapka and Filippka more than once, and from others it flew up to the neck.

One day an event happened. An attack came on Filippka and Agapka, from which not only they, but the whole outskirts became quiet ...

She came in the form of nine-year-old Nadia, the daughter of the old actor Zorin, who recently settled on the outskirts and in the same yard where the mischievous guys lived. The actor went to taverns and entertained the audience with stories and songs, while Nadia sat at home. Always at the window, always with needlework or a book.

Agapka passed by, looked at the girl, thin, frail, and as if golden from the golden hair falling on her quiet shoulders, and for some unknown reason, everything flared up, ashamed, shuddered at something sharp and radiant that ran before his eyes and seemed to pluck something. then from his soul. Suddenly Agapka was gone, and another one appeared, looking either like God's book with golden leaves lying in the altar, or like a light bird flying in the blue skies ... He even covered his face with his hands and quickly ran away.

On the same day, Filippka also saw a golden girl. He boldly approached her and said gravely:

- My name is Philip Vasilyevich!

- Very nice, - the girl rang out with a reed, - and I’m Nadezhda Borisovna ... You have a very beautiful costume, like in the theater ...

Filippka was delighted and pulled up his motley trousers.

After this meeting, his soul became not its own.

He came home and asked his mother for soap - to wash and comb him. That wonder was given:

- Since when?

Today's liturgical chant was burning above the ground. “Let all human flesh be silent, and let it stand with fear and trembling.”

The evening earth was silent. At home, the glass doors of the icons were opened. I asked my father:

What is this for?

This is a sign that the doors of heaven will open on Easter!

Before the start of matins, my father and I wanted to sleep, but could not. They lay on the bed nearby, and he told how he had to celebrate Easter in Moscow as a boy.

Moscow Easter, son, mighty! Whoever saw her once, he will remember until the grave. It will crash at midnight the first blow of the bell from Ivan the Great, as if the sky with stars will fall to the ground! And in the bell, son, six thousand pounds, and it took twelve people to swing the tongue! The first blow was driven to the clock on the Spasskaya Tower ...

Father rises from the bed and speaks about Moscow with a tremor in his voice:

Yes ... the clock on the Spasskaya Tower ... They strike, - and immediately a rocket soars up to the sky ... followed by firing from old guns on the Tainitskaya Tower - one hundred and one shots! ..

Ivan the Great is spreading across Moscow by sea, and the rest of the forty-forty echo him like rivers in the flood! Such, I tell you, power floats over the capital, that you seem not to walk, but to swing on the waves with a small chip! Mighty night, like the thunder of the Lord! Hey, son, do not paint Easter Moscow with words!

The father pauses and closes his eyes.

You are falling asleep?

No. I look at Moscow.

And where do you have it?

Before your eyes. How alive...

Tell me more about Easter!

I also happened to celebrate Easter in a monastery. Simplicity and holiness was even better than Moscow! One monastery is worth something! Around - the forest is untrodden, animal paths, and near the monastery walls - the river splashes. Taiga trees look into it, and the church is knocked down from strong resinous logs. A great number of pilgrims gathered here from the surrounding villages for the Bright Matins. There was a rare custom here. After matins, girls with candles went out to the river, sang “Christ is Risen”, bowed to the river water, and then they stuck the candles to a wooden round and let them go down the river in turn. There was a sign: if the Easter candle does not go out, then the girl will marry, but if it goes out, it will remain a bitter century!

Just imagine what a marvel it was! In the middle of the night, a hundred lights are floating on the water, and then the bells are ringing, and the forest is noisy!

It’s enough for you to veat something, - mother interrupted us, - you’d better get enough sleep, otherwise you’ll stand at matins with your sons!

I was not up to sleep. The soul was seized with a premonition of something inexplicably huge, resembling either Moscow or a hundred candles floating along a forest river. He got out of bed, walked from corner to corner, interfered with his mother cooking and kept asking her:

Will you go to church soon?
- Do not turn around like a slanting spindle! she sighed softly. - If you can not wait, then go, but do not indulge there!

There are two whole hours before matins, and the church fence is already full of children.

A night without a single star, without wind, and, as it were, terrible in its singularity and immensity. Easter cakes in white shawls floated along the dark street - only they were visible, but there were no people, as it were.

In the semi-dark church, near the Shroud, there is a queue of hunters to read the Acts of the Apostles. I joined too. I was asked:

Well, start first!

I went up to the lectern and began to deduce in warehouses: “The first word I made about Theophilus,” and I could not pronounce “Theophilus” in any way. Confused, he lowered his head in embarrassment and stopped reading. They approached me and made a remark:

Wanted to try!

You better try Easter cakes, - and they pushed me aside.

There was no standing in the church. He went out into the fence and sat down on the step of the temple.

Where is Easter now? I thought. - Does it soar in the sky, or walks outside the city, in the forest, along swampy hummocks, pine forests, snowdrops, heather and juniper paths, and what image does it have? I recalled someone's story that on the night of the Bright Resurrection of Christ, a ladder descends from heaven to earth, and the Lord descends to us along it with the holy apostles, saints, martyrs and martyrs. The Lord walks the earth; blesses the fields, forests, lakes, rivers, birds, man, beast and everything created by His holy will, and the saints sing “Christ is risen from the dead ...” The song of the saints scatters on the ground in grains, and from these grains thin fragrant lilies of the valley are born in the forests ...

The time was nearing midnight. The fence is thicker and fuller buzzing. Someone came out of the church gatehouse with a lantern.

It's coming, it's coming! the boys shouted furiously, clapping their hands.

Who goes?

Ringer Lexandra! Now it's crashing!

And he slammed...

From the first strike of the bell on the ground, it was as if a large silver wheel rolled, and when its buzzing passed, another rolled, followed by a third, and the Paschal darkness of the night spun in the silver hum of all the city churches.

I was spotted in the dark by the beggar Yakov.

Luminous sound! - he said and crossed himself several times.

The “great Midnight Office” began to be served in the church. They sang "Wave of the Sea". Priests in white robes lifted the Shroud and took it to the altar, where it will lie on the throne, until the Feast of the Ascension. With a roar they pushed the heavy golden tomb aside, to its usual place, and in this roar there was also a significant, Paschal roar - as if a huge stone was being rolled away from the tomb of the Lord.

I saw my father and mother. He approached them and said:

I will never offend you! - clung to them and exclaimed loudly: - How fun it is!

And the Easter joy was expanding, like the Volga in the flood, about which my father spoke more than once. Tall banners swayed like spring trees in the sunshine. They began to prepare for the procession around the church. A silver altar cross, a golden gospel, a huge round bread - artos, were taken out of the altar, the raised icons smiled, and red Easter candles were lit by everyone.

There was silence. It was transparent, and so light, if you blow on it, it will vibrate like a cobweb. And in the midst of this silence they sang: “Your Resurrection, Christ the Savior, the angels sing in heaven.” And under this inspiring song, the procession began to flow with lights. They stepped on my foot, dripped wax on my head, but I almost didn’t feel anything and thought: “this is how it should be” - Easter! Passover of the Lord! - sunbeams ran to their liking. Clinging closely to each other, in the darkness of the night, along the streams of the Sunday song, showered with chimes and warmed by the lights of candles, we walked around the church, which was white with hundreds of lights, and stopped waiting at the firmly closed doors. The bells were silenced. The heart froze. His face flushed with heat. The earth has disappeared somewhere - you are not standing on it, but as if in blue skies. What about people? Where are they? Everything turned into jubilant Easter candles!

And now, a huge thing that I could not cover at first - it happened! They sang "Christ is risen from the dead."

We sang “Christ is Risen” three times, and the doors of the high door swung open before us. We entered the resurrected church - and before our eyes, in the radiance of chandeliers, large and small lamps, in sparkles of silver, gold and precious stones on icons, in bright paper flowers on Easter cakes - the Easter of the Lord flashed! The priest, shrouded in incense smoke, with a clearer face, brightly and loudly exclaimed: "Christ is Risen," and the people answered him with a roar of heavy icy snow falling from a height - "Truly Risen."

Grishka found himself next to him. I took his hands and said:

Tomorrow I will give you a red egg! The very best! Christ is Risen!

Fedka was also standing nearby. He was also promised a red egg. I saw the janitor Davyd, went up to him and said:

I will never call you a "sweeper-martyr." Christ is Risen!

And the words of the Easter canon flew through the church like lightning. Every word is a spark of cheerful quick fire:

“The heavens, therefore, are worthy of having fun, but the earth rejoices, but the whole visible and invisible world celebrates, for Christ is risen, eternal joy.”

My heart sank with joy - near the pulpit I saw a girl with blond braids, whom I noticed on the removal of the Shroud! I myself went up to her, and blushing all over, lowering my eyes, I whispered:

Christ is Risen!

She was embarrassed, dropped the candle from her hands, reached out to me with a quiet flame, and we christened ... and then we were so ashamed that we stood with our heads bowed for a long time.

And at this time, the Easter word of John Chrysostom thundered from the pulpit:

“If anyone is pious and God-loving, let him enjoy this good and bright celebration: Christ is risen, and life lives!”

Vasily Akimovich Nikiforov-Volgin (December 24, 1900 (January 6, 1901), the village of Markushi, Kalyazinsky district, Tver province - December 14, 1941, Vyatka) - Russian writer. Born in the village of Markushi, Kalyazinsky district, Tver province in a family of craftsmen. Soon after the birth of Vasily, the family moved to Narva. Having no funds to finish the gymnasium, Nikiforov-Volgin in his childhood and youth was engaged in self-education a lot, he learned Russian literature well. His favorite writers were F. Dostoevsky, N. Leskov, A. Chekhov. S. Yesenin. In 1920, Nikiforov-Volgin became one of the organizers of the "Union of Russian Youth" in Narva, arranging literary evenings and concerts. The first publication of Nikiforov-Volgin - the article "Do your duty!" (1921) in the Tallinn newspaper "Latest News", where the author urged to take care of the graves of the soldiers of the white North-Western Army. Since 1923, a regular literary and journalistic activity Nikiforov-Volgin. In Russian periodicals published in Estonia, he publishes stories, articles, essays, sketches, lyrical miniatures, which he signs with the pseudonym Vasily Volgin. At the same time, Nikiforov-Volgin, who knew and loved Orthodox worship, serves as a psalmist in the Narva Transfiguration Cathedral of the Savior (until the spring of 1932). In 1927, at the competition for young authors in Tallinn, he received the first prize for the story “Bow to the Earth”. In 1927 he became one of the founders of the Russian sports and educational society "Svyatogor", in which in 1929 a religious and philosophical circle was created, which laid the foundation for the local organization of the Russian student Christian movement. Nikiforov-Volgin participated in the congresses of this movement, held in the Pskov-Pechersk and Pyukhtitsky monasteries. In 1930-1932, Nikiforov-Volgin also headed the literary circle of the Svyatogor society. In the 30s, together with L. Aks, he edited the Wild Flowers magazine, the organ of Russian literary youth in Estonia. By the mid-30s, Nikiforov-Volgin became famous writer Russian Diaspora. He was awarded the prize of the magazine "Illustrated Russia" for the story "Bishop". On the eve of 1936, he moved to Tallinn, where he was elected an honorary member of the Russian society "Vityaz"; is published in a major organ of the Russian emigration - the Riga newspaper Segodnya. The Tallinn publishing house "Russian Book" published 2 collections of Nikiforov-Volgin - "Birthday Land" (1937) and "Road Staff" (1938). In the summer of 1940, Soviet power was established in Estonia, putting an end to cultural and literary life Russian emigration. In May 1941, Nikiforov-Volgin, who worked at a shipyard, was arrested by the NKVD, and with the outbreak of war sent to Kirov (Vyatka), where he was shot on December 14, 1941 "for publishing books, pamphlets and plays of slanderous, anti-Soviet content." Rehabilitated in 1991.