Literary and historical notes of a young technician. What are you thinking, Cossack? And a terrible revolution than we

• Genre:
• Fedor Dmitrievich Kryukov was born on February 2 (14), 1870 in the village of Glazunovskaya, Ust-Medveditsky District of the Don Cossack Region, into a Cossack family. In 1892 he graduated from the St. Nizhny Novgorod. State Councilor. Began to be published in the early 1890s in the Northern Bulletin, long years was a member of the editorial board of "Russian Wealth" (magazine VG Korolenko). He published collections: “Cossack motives. Essays and stories ”(St. Petersburg, 1907),“ Stories ”(St. Petersburg, 1910). Gorky and Korolenko appreciated his prose, he was called “Homer of the Cossacks” during his lifetime. In 1906 he was elected to the First State Duma from the Don Cossacks, was close to the faction of the Trudoviks. For signing the Vyborg Appeal, he was serving a prison sentence in the "Crosses" (1909). On the fronts of the First World War, he was an orderly of the State Duma detachment and a front-line correspondent. In 1917 he returned to the Don, was elected secretary of the Military Circle (Don Parliament). One of the ideologists of the White movement. Editor of the government press organ "Don Vedomosti". According to the official, but unconfirmed version, in the spring of 1920 he died of typhus in one of the Kuban villages during the retreat of the Whites to Novorossiysk, according to another, also unconfirmed, he was captured and shot by the Reds. From the beginning of the 1910s, he worked on a novel about Cossack life. To date, several hundred parallels of Kryukov's prose with Sholokhov's "Quiet Don" have been identified. See more about this:
• | | (0)

• Genre:
• Fedor Dmitrievich Kryukov was born on February 2 (14), 1870 in the village of Glazunovskaya, Ust-Medveditsky District of the Don Cossack Region, into a Cossack family. In 1892 he graduated from the St. Petersburg Historical and Philological Institute, taught at the gymnasiums of Orel and Nizhny Novgorod. State Councilor. Began to publish in the early 1890s in the Severny Vestnik, for many years he was a member of the editorial board of Russian Wealth (VG Korolenko magazine). He published collections: “Cossack motives. Essays and stories ”(St. Petersburg, 1907),“ Stories ”(St. Petersburg, 1910). Gorky and Korolenko appreciated his prose, he was called “Homer of the Cossacks” during his lifetime. In 1906 he was elected to the First State Duma from the Don Cossacks, was close to the faction of the Trudoviks. For signing the Vyborg Appeal, he was serving a prison sentence in the "Crosses" (1909). On the fronts of the First World War, he was an orderly of the State Duma detachment and a front-line correspondent. In 1917 he returned to the Don, was elected secretary of the Military Circle (Don Parliament). One of the ideologists of the White movement. Editor of the government press organ "Don Vedomosti". According to the official, but unconfirmed version, in the spring of 1920 he died of typhus in one of the Kuban villages during the retreat of the Whites to Novorossiysk, according to another, also unconfirmed, he was captured and shot by the Reds. From the beginning of the 1910s, he worked on a novel about Cossack life. To date, several hundred parallels of Kryukov's prose with Sholokhov's "Quiet Don" have been identified. See more about this:
• | | (0)

• Genre:
• Fedor Dmitrievich Kryukov was born on February 2 (14), 1870 in the village of Glazunovskaya, Ust-Medveditsky District of the Don Cossack Region, into a Cossack family. In 1892 he graduated from the St. Petersburg Historical and Philological Institute, taught at the gymnasiums of Orel and Nizhny Novgorod. State Councilor. Began to publish in the early 1890s in the Severny Vestnik, for many years he was a member of the editorial board of Russian Wealth (VG Korolenko magazine). He published collections: “Cossack motives. Essays and stories ”(St. Petersburg, 1907),“ Stories ”(St. Petersburg, 1910). Gorky and Korolenko appreciated his prose, he was called “Homer of the Cossacks” during his lifetime. In 1906 he was elected to the First State Duma from the Don Cossacks, was close to the faction of the Trudoviks. For signing the Vyborg Appeal, he was serving a prison sentence in the "Crosses" (1909). On the fronts of the First World War, he was an orderly of the State Duma detachment and a front-line correspondent. In 1917 he returned to the Don, was elected secretary of the Military Circle (Don Parliament). One of the ideologists of the White movement. Editor of the government press organ "Don Vedomosti". According to the official, but unconfirmed version, in the spring of 1920 he died of typhus in one of the Kuban villages during the retreat of the Whites to Novorossiysk, according to another, also unconfirmed, he was captured and shot by the Reds. From the beginning of the 1910s, he worked on a novel about Cossack life. To date, several hundred parallels of Kryukov's prose with Sholokhov's "Quiet Don" have been identified. See more about this:
• | | (0)

• Genre:
• Fedor Dmitrievich Kryukov was born on February 2 (14), 1870 in the village of Glazunovskaya, Ust-Medveditsky District of the Don Cossack Region, into a Cossack family. In 1892 he graduated from the St. Petersburg Historical and Philological Institute, taught at the gymnasiums of Orel and Nizhny Novgorod. State Councilor. Began to publish in the early 1890s in the Severny Vestnik, for many years he was a member of the editorial board of Russian Wealth (VG Korolenko magazine). He published collections: “Cossack motives. Essays and stories ”(St. Petersburg, 1907),“ Stories ”(St. Petersburg, 1910). Gorky and Korolenko appreciated his prose, he was called “Homer of the Cossacks” during his lifetime. In 1906 he was elected to the First State Duma from the Don Cossacks, was close to the faction of the Trudoviks. For signing the Vyborg Appeal, he was serving a prison sentence in the "Crosses" (1909). On the fronts of the First World War, he was an orderly of the State Duma detachment and a front-line correspondent. In 1917 he returned to the Don, was elected secretary of the Military Circle (Don Parliament). One of the ideologists of the White movement. Editor of the government press organ "Don Vedomosti". According to the official, but unconfirmed version, in the spring of 1920 he died of typhus in one of the Kuban villages during the retreat of the Whites to Novorossiysk, according to another, also unconfirmed, he was captured and shot by the Reds. From the beginning of the 1910s, he worked on a novel about Cossack life. To date, several hundred parallels of Kryukov's prose with Sholokhov's "Quiet Don" have been identified. See more about this:
• | | (0)

• Genre:
• Fedor Dmitrievich Kryukov was born on February 2 (14), 1870 in the village of Glazunovskaya, Ust-Medveditsky District of the Don Cossack Region, into a Cossack family. In 1892 he graduated from the St. Petersburg Historical and Philological Institute, taught at the gymnasiums of Orel and Nizhny Novgorod. State Councilor. Began to publish in the early 1890s in the Severny Vestnik, for many years he was a member of the editorial board of Russian Wealth (VG Korolenko magazine). He published collections: “Cossack motives. Essays and stories ”(St. Petersburg, 1907),“ Stories ”(St. Petersburg, 1910). Gorky and Korolenko appreciated his prose, he was called “Homer of the Cossacks” during his lifetime. In 1906 he was elected to the First State Duma from the Don Cossacks, was close to the faction of the Trudoviks. For signing the Vyborg Appeal, he was serving a prison sentence in the "Crosses" (1909). On the fronts of the First World War, he was an orderly of the State Duma detachment and a front-line correspondent. In 1917 he returned to the Don, was elected secretary of the Military Circle (Don Parliament). One of the ideologists of the White movement. Editor of the government press organ "Don Vedomosti". According to the official, but unconfirmed version, in the spring of 1920 he died of typhus in one of the Kuban villages during the retreat of the Whites to Novorossiysk, according to another, also unconfirmed, he was captured and shot by the Reds. From the beginning of the 1910s, he worked on a novel about Cossack life. To date, several hundred parallels of Kryukov's prose with Sholokhov's "Quiet Don" have been identified. See more about this:
• | | (0)

• Genre:
• Fedor Dmitrievich Kryukov was born on February 2 (14), 1870 in the village of Glazunovskaya, Ust-Medveditsky District of the Don Cossack Region, into a Cossack family. In 1892 he graduated from the St. Petersburg Historical and Philological Institute, taught at the gymnasiums of Orel and Nizhny Novgorod. State Councilor. Began to publish in the early 1890s in the Severny Vestnik, for many years he was a member of the editorial board of Russian Wealth (VG Korolenko magazine). He published collections: “Cossack motives. Essays and stories ”(St. Petersburg, 1907),“ Stories ”(St. Petersburg, 1910). Gorky and Korolenko appreciated his prose, he was called “Homer of the Cossacks” during his lifetime. In 1906 he was elected to the First State Duma from the Don Cossacks, was close to the faction of the Trudoviks. For signing the Vyborg Appeal, he was serving a prison sentence in the "Crosses" (1909). On the fronts of the First World War, he was an orderly of the State Duma detachment and a front-line correspondent. In 1917 he returned to the Don, was elected secretary of the Military Circle (Don Parliament). One of the ideologists of the White movement. Editor of the government press organ "Don Vedomosti". According to the official, but unconfirmed version, in the spring of 1920 he died of typhus in one of the Kuban villages during the retreat of the Whites to Novorossiysk, according to another, also unconfirmed, he was captured and shot by the Reds. From the beginning of the 1910s, he worked on a novel about Cossack life. To date, several hundred parallels of Kryukov's prose with Sholokhov's "Quiet Don" have been identified. See more about this:
• | | (0)

• Genre:
• Fedor Dmitrievich Kryukov was born on February 2 (14), 1870 in the village of Glazunovskaya, Ust-Medveditsky District of the Don Cossack Region, into a Cossack family. In 1892 he graduated from the St. Petersburg Historical and Philological Institute, taught at the gymnasiums of Orel and Nizhny Novgorod. State Councilor. Began to publish in the early 1890s in the Severny Vestnik, for many years he was a member of the editorial board of Russian Wealth (VG Korolenko magazine). He published collections: “Cossack motives. Essays and stories ”(St. Petersburg, 1907),“ Stories ”(St. Petersburg, 1910). Gorky and Korolenko appreciated his prose, he was called “Homer of the Cossacks” during his lifetime. In 1906 he was elected to the First State Duma from the Don Cossacks, was close to the faction of the Trudoviks. For signing the Vyborg Appeal, he was serving a prison sentence in the "Crosses" (1909). On the fronts of the First World War, he was an orderly of the State Duma detachment and a front-line correspondent. In 1917 he returned to the Don, was elected secretary of the Military Circle (Don Parliament). One of the ideologists of the White movement. Editor of the government press organ "Don Vedomosti". According to the official, but unconfirmed version, in the spring of 1920 he died of typhus in one of the Kuban villages during the retreat of the Whites to Novorossiysk, according to another, also unconfirmed, he was captured and shot by the Reds. From the beginning of the 1910s, he worked on a novel about Cossack life. To date, several hundred parallels of Kryukov's prose with Sholokhov's "Quiet Don" have been identified. See more about this:
• | | (0)

• Genre:
• Fedor Dmitrievich Kryukov was born on February 2 (14), 1870 in the village of Glazunovskaya, Ust-Medveditsky District of the Don Cossack Region, into a Cossack family. In 1892 he graduated from the St. Petersburg Historical and Philological Institute, taught at the gymnasiums of Orel and Nizhny Novgorod. State Councilor. Began to publish in the early 1890s in the Severny Vestnik, for many years he was a member of the editorial board of Russian Wealth (VG Korolenko magazine). He published collections: “Cossack motives. Essays and stories ”(St. Petersburg, 1907),“ Stories ”(St. Petersburg, 1910). Gorky and Korolenko appreciated his prose, he was called “Homer of the Cossacks” during his lifetime. In 1906 he was elected to the First State Duma from the Don Cossacks, was close to the faction of the Trudoviks. For signing the Vyborg Appeal, he was serving a prison sentence in the "Crosses" (1909). On the fronts of the First World War, he was an orderly of the State Duma detachment and a front-line correspondent. In 1917 he returned to the Don, was elected secretary of the Military Circle (Don Parliament). One of the ideologists of the White movement. Editor of the government press organ "Don Vedomosti". According to the official, but unconfirmed version, in the spring of 1920 he died of typhus in one of the Kuban villages during the retreat of the Whites to Novorossiysk, according to another, also unconfirmed, he was captured and shot by the Reds. From the beginning of the 1910s, he worked on a novel about Cossack life. To date, several hundred parallels of Kryukov's prose with Sholokhov's "Quiet Don" have been identified. See more about this:
• | | (0)

• Genre:
• Fedor Dmitrievich Kryukov was born on February 2 (14), 1870 in the village of Glazunovskaya, Ust-Medveditsky District of the Don Cossack Region, into a Cossack family. In 1892 he graduated from the St. Petersburg Historical and Philological Institute, taught at the gymnasiums of Orel and Nizhny Novgorod. State Councilor. Began to publish in the early 1890s in the Severny Vestnik, for many years he was a member of the editorial board of Russian Wealth (VG Korolenko magazine). He published collections: “Cossack motives. Essays and stories ”(St. Petersburg, 1907),“ Stories ”(St. Petersburg, 1910). Gorky and Korolenko appreciated his prose, he was called “Homer of the Cossacks” during his lifetime. In 1906 he was elected to the First State Duma from the Don Cossacks, was close to the faction of the Trudoviks. For signing the Vyborg Appeal, he was serving a prison sentence in the "Crosses" (1909). On the fronts of the First World War, he was an orderly of the State Duma detachment and a front-line correspondent. In 1917 he returned to the Don, was elected secretary of the Military Circle (Don Parliament). One of the ideologists of the White movement. Editor of the government press organ "Don Vedomosti". According to the official, but unconfirmed version, in the spring of 1920 he died of typhus in one of the Kuban villages during the retreat of the Whites to Novorossiysk, according to another, also unconfirmed, he was captured and shot by the Reds. From the beginning of the 1910s, he worked on a novel about Cossack life. To date, several hundred parallels of Kryukov's prose with Sholokhov's "Quiet Don" have been identified. See more about this:
• | | (0)

• Genre:
• Fedor Dmitrievich Kryukov was born on February 2 (14), 1870 in the village of Glazunovskaya, Ust-Medveditsky District of the Don Cossack Region, into a Cossack family. In 1892 he graduated from the St. Petersburg Historical and Philological Institute, taught at the gymnasiums of Orel and Nizhny Novgorod. State Councilor. Began to publish in the early 1890s in the Severny Vestnik, for many years he was a member of the editorial board of Russian Wealth (VG Korolenko magazine). He published collections: “Cossack motives. Essays and stories ”(St. Petersburg, 1907),“ Stories ”(St. Petersburg, 1910). Gorky and Korolenko appreciated his prose, he was called “Homer of the Cossacks” during his lifetime. In 1906 he was elected to the First State Duma from the Don Cossacks, was close to the faction of the Trudoviks. For signing the Vyborg Appeal, he was serving a prison sentence in the "Crosses" (1909). On the fronts of the First World War, he was an orderly of the State Duma detachment and a front-line correspondent. In 1917 he returned to the Don, was elected secretary of the Military Circle (Don Parliament). One of the ideologists of the White movement. Editor of the government press organ "Don Vedomosti". According to the official, but unconfirmed version, in the spring of 1920 he died of typhus in one of the Kuban villages during the retreat of the Whites to Novorossiysk, according to another, also unconfirmed, he was captured and shot by the Reds. From the beginning of the 1910s, he worked on a novel about Cossack life. To date, several hundred parallels of Kryukov's prose with Sholokhov's "Quiet Don" have been identified. See more about this:

Fyodor Kryukov is a Cossack writer undeservedly forgotten in Soviet times, who left behind 4 volumes of stories dedicated to the history and life of the Don Cossacks. Row modern researchers It is believed that it was Fyodor Dmitrievich who wrote The Quiet Flows the Don, and Sholokhov either stole his manuscripts or was appointed the author "from above". And this version is not unfounded.

Singer of the Quiet Don

In pre-revolutionary Russia, Fedor Dmitrievich was enough famous person, and after the Bolsheviks came to power, his personality and work began to be forgotten. Kryukov was born in the Ust-Medveditsky district in the large village of Glazunovskaya. The father of the future writer was an ataman, and his mother was a well-born Cossack noblewoman.

He was a member of the Populist Socialist Party, worked as the head of the department of literature and art in the popular scientific journal Russian Wealth. He taught history and Russian literature at the gymnasium. Per political activity spent three months in prison. During the fight against communism, he was a prominent figure in the Military Circle, an ideologist of resistance to the Bolsheviks on the Don. During the retreat of the white forces in March 1920, he died of typhus, according to another version, he was executed.

Fedor Dmitrievich wrote many stories and essays, dedicated to history and life Don Cossacks. According to friends, in recent years he wrote a novel, the manuscripts of which disappeared after his death. It is Kryukov who is credited with the authorship, if not all, then the first 4 volumes of the epic novel Quiet Flows the Don. The version was first expressed by Solzhenitsyn and the Soviet literary critic Medvedeva-Tomashevskaya.

In Kryukov’s Don stories and in The Quiet Don, there are common comparisons: “a watermelon is like a shorn head”, “outlandish clouds” next to a “thoughtful chicken”, “white burdock of a headdress”, “a jagged back of clouds”, “a face like a boot top ". It is doubtful that such coincidences are accidental, especially "the honey smell of pumpkin flowers from the garden."

field bag

At the XVIII Congress of the CPSU (b) in 1939, already famous writer but not yet Nobel laureate Mikhail Sholokhov, speaking to the delegates, said strange words: “In the units of the Red Army ... we will beat the enemy ... And I dare to assure you, comrade delegates to the congress, that we will not leave field bags ... We will collect other people's bags ... Because in our literary economy the contents of these bags will come in handy later. Having defeated the enemies, we will still write books about how we beat these enemies.

Researchers believe that Kryukov kept his work in a field bag. After the death of the writer, they ended up with Pyotr Gromoslavsky, who later became the father-in-law of Mikhail Sholokhov. Subsequently, the Sholokhovs stated that they were unfamiliar with Kryukov, but this is not true.

Fedor Dmitrievich studied at the gymnasium, where his classmate, which is an important detail, was Pyotr Gromoslavsky. The future famous Soviet writer Serafimovich, who may have helped Sholokhov remake the text and fill it with elements of the Cossack dialect.

Also in the English archives there is a photo taken in 1919 in the Ust-Medveditskaya village. The photo surfaced in 2016 showing British officers and leaders of the Cossack uprising against the Bolsheviks. Next to the sitting Kryukov is his friend Alexander Golubintsev and none other than Pyotr Gromoslavsky. Surprisingly, in the photo, Kryukov is holding a leather hiking bag in his hands.

Sholokhov's draft

Researchers who accuse Sholokhov of plagiarism give many arguments. Inconsistencies in dating, historical errors, early age of the author, lack of education and much more. However, their main argument is the writer's working drafts. Upon closer examination of the sheets with the text, it turned out that this was not a draft, but rather a census.

In 1929, for the commission on plagiarism, Sholokhov urgently needed to prepare a manuscript. He presented it, but written in three different handwritings (the writer himself, his wife Maria and her sister). Kryukov wrote his novel according to the old spelling, and in Sholokhov's draft there are traces of work on the removal of letter rudiments.

There are many turns in the text, which could only arise when rewriting the text with an incomprehensible handwriting. The commission found no plagiarism and recognized Sholokhov as the author. In Pravda it was printed that those who doubted the authenticity of the novel were slanderers and enemies of Bolshevism.

proletarian writer

Sholokhov was suspected of plagiarism back in Soviet times. Professor Dmitry Likhachev, writers Iosif Gerasimov, Alexei Tolstoy and many others did not believe in his authorship. Professor Alexander Logvinovich Ilsky, who works at Roman-gazeta, which was the first to publish Quiet Don, also expressed his attitude towards the problem of the authorship of the great novel.

He left the following recollection: "Not only I, but everyone in our editorial office knew that Sholokhov never wrote the first four parts of the novel The Quiet Flows the Don." According to Ilsky, when there was talk of plagiarism in the literary environment, the entire team was brought together by the editor-in-chief Anna Grudskaya and said that the issue with Quiet Don was decided “at the top” and the question should not be asked.

party and new Soviet power what was needed was a novel no worse than War and Peace and talent on the level of Leo Tolstoy. However, this person must come from the people. This is how the young writer Sholokhov appeared, who wrote a great epic, and for this he did not need a noble origin, education and life experience.

Fedor Kryukov

QUIET DON
(1912-1920)

PRELIMINARY

Our glorious little land is not plowed up with plows ...
Our land is plowed with horse hooves,
And the glorious land was sown with Cossack heads,
Our quiet Don is decorated with young widows,
Our father, the quiet Don, blooms with orphans,
The wave in the quiet Don is filled with paternal, maternal tears.

Oh you, our father quiet Don!
Oh, what are you, quiet Don, mutnehonek flowing?
Oh, how can I, the quiet Don, not muddy the leak!
From the bottom of me, quiet Dona, cold keys beat,
In the middle of me, quiet Dona, the white fish stirs up,

Ancient Cossack songs

With this epigraph begins "Quiet Flows the Don" under the brand name "Mikhail Sholokhov". But now we have already published an essay by Fyodor Kryukov "Bulavinsky rebellion", in which - oh, strangeness! - we find the same lines about "Father Quiet Don"!
Candidate of Philosophical Sciences Anatoly Sidochenko, who walked far and wide through Kryukov’s places, in his book “Read, Russia! "Quiet Don" of his son, the Don Cossack hero Fyodor Kryukov! (Slavyansk, 2004) writes: “Thus, for Kryukov, only such a beginning is permissible: the Melekhovsky yard is on the very edge of the village. The gates from the cattle base lead south to the Don. A steep eight-yard descent between moss-covered chalk boulders, and here is the shore: a mother-of-pearl scattering of shells, a damp, broken border of pebbles: pebbles, kissed by water, become damp. And further - the stirrup of the Don, boiling under the wind with a blued swell, the main course of the river. To the North - behind the willow redwood and an abundance of humen wattle - a wide steppe road leading to the Ukrainian Mikhailovskaya Sloboda, it was jokingly nicknamed the "Hetman's Way". On the sides of this road there is gray sagebrush and a brown, tenacious plantain trampled by horse hooves. When climbing a large hillock - a fork of three roads, crowned with a chapel, behind it - a steppe covered with a flowing haze. From the West, the chalky ridge of the hill, one of those elevations which locals called "mountains". To the East - the central street of the village, which is decorated with a newly built church; the street permeates the square, and behind the village it seems to run away to a borrowing place, as the Cossacks call the Don water meadows. (In the first paragraph of the plagiarized version of Kryukov's novel, not only mistakes were made due to the difficult understanding of Kryukov's handwriting, but also malicious actions of a purely thieves' nature: poles the globe Kryukov when displaying Art. Tatarskaya - the prototype of which was his native village Glazunovskaya, "native corner, native land"! - wear the usual classic sequence, like navigators, travelers and explorers: in pairs, South-North, West-East. And the plagiarists deliberately changed everything, mixed it up so that Glazunovskaya was unrecognizable. There is just a steep descent in it, where the love of the main Kryukov heroes "begins", the Medveditsa, a tributary of the Don, is moved up to the descent, and is called the Don, since Kryukov called the Don his native river. And 150 steps from the "Melekhovsky yard" is the courtyard of the Kryukovs' estate. On this estate, preparing for the Nobel crime of awarding the Sh-vu Prize, in 1962 big house The Kryukovs were demolished and a dining room was built in its place, and a smaller house was covered with iron plates and dragged to another street. They did everything so that the fellow countrymen did not remember anything about Kryukov, did not know anything. And so it happened. But in 2002, I reminded Kryukov's countrymen of everything! And by the way: he was completely forgotten!).
The greatest writer of Russia, Fyodor Dmitrievich Kryukov, who knows how to put paint on paint, whipping it up to a metaphor of subtext, accessible to the intellectual reading public, was trampled under the hooves of the Bolsheviks, who drowned the Don in blood and destroyed the Cossacks as a class. A stranger on the Don, Mikhail Sholokh (this is how Pyotr Gromoslavsky signed the first feuilletons and "Don Tales" and the head of the RAPP (in fact, the head of the Union of Writers of the USSR) Alexander Serafimovich who published them) sat on the throne of "Classics Soviet literature", and even later Nobel Prize received (I note that I attribute this Nobel Prize to Fyodor Kryukov)!
The most thorough disavower of the "writer Sholokhov" Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote: "... that it was not Sholokhov who wrote The Quiet Flows the Don" - it is easy to prove to a thorough literary critic, and not putting much effort: just compare the style, language, all the artistic techniques of The Quiet Flows the Don and "Virgin Soil Upturned". (That he wrote “Raised” too, maybe he didn’t? - I couldn’t reach that!) ... "
My conclusion is final and irrevocable: not only was Sholokhov not a writer, but he he was even a reader, did not have the slightest inclination towards "reading - the best teaching" (Pushkin), was only alphabetically literate, did not master the syntax and spelling; to hide his illiteracy, the wildly ignorant Sholokhov never publicly wrote even short notes; after his death, no writer's papers remained from Sholokhov, the desk was empty, empty nightstands, and in "his library" it was impossible to find a single book with his marks and bookmarks. Never seen him working in the library or archives. Thus, those "whistleblowers" who said or wrote that Sholokhov did this and that, revealed the ignorance of the plagiarist: Sholokhov was only able to carry out courier orders, and the plagiarism of The Quiet Don and everything else so-called. "Sholokhov's works" - all types of plagiarism were performed by other people, mainly by his wife and her relatives Gromoslavsky. Attributing plagiarism to Sholokhov means creating a mythology of a plagiarist who was in every respect a literary insane person. That is why his wife Maria fanned the legend that her and her husband's handwriting is "equally beautiful", which is why the falsified "his archive" is written in different handwriting and different people. The absolute truth: Sholokhov was neither a writer nor an active plagiarist: his name, like a stigma, denoted the plagiarism of other people. Sholokhov could be called a writer only once a year as an April Fool's joke. He was a bloody joke of Stalin, a criminal product of a criminal system, a plague feces of revolutionary October and the magazine "October", an illegitimate degenerate of October in every sense.

Yuri KUVALDIN

Fedor Kryukov

QUIET DON
(1912-1920)

fragment of the beginning of the novel

Is our glorious land plowed up with something?
Our glorious little land is not plowed with plows, not with plows,
Our land is plowed with horse hooves,
And the glorious land was sown with Cossack heads.
Is our father, the glorious quiet Don, decorated with something?
Our quiet Don is decorated with young widows.
Is our father, the glorious quiet Don, blooming in some way?
Our father, the glorious quiet Don, is blooming with orphans.
Is the wave filled with something in the glorious quiet Don?
The wave in the quiet Don is filled with paternal and maternal tears.

BOOK ONE

PART ONE

Melekhovsky yard - on the very edge of the village. The gates from the cattle base lead south to the Don. A steep eight-yard descent between moss-covered chalk blocks, and here is the shore: a mother-of-pearl scattering of shells, a damp, broken border of pebbles kissed by waves, and further on, the stirrup of the Don, boiling under the wind with blued ripples, silvers. To the north, behind the willow redwood and an abundance of humen wattle fences, a wide steppe road leading to the Ukrainian Mikhailovsky Sloboda, it was jokingly nicknamed the "Hetman's Way". On the sides of this road, sagebrush rustles, and brown, living plantain, trampled by horse hooves. When climbing a large hillock, there is a fork of three roads, crowned with a chapel; behind it stretched the steppe covered with flowing haze. From the west, the Tatar chalk ridge of the hill guards, one of those elevations that the locals call "mountains". To the east is the central street of the village, penetrating the square, and then running to the place, flood meadows, where Medveditsa flows.
In the penultimate Turkish campaign, the Cossack Melekhov Prokofy returned to the village, who served in the Third Don Regiment and participated in the defeat of the Turks at Kyuryuk-Dar, east of Kars, and in the capture of Kars. On the way home, in a Circassian village in the Verkhokuban region, Melekhov fell in love with a Circassian orphan. Her parents were driven into the mountains by the Chechens, who defeated and robbed the village with a militant raid. The Circassian responded to the Cossack in return. Prokofy gave her relatives everything of value from his "trophies of war" as a bride price. And they, in turn, gave a worthy dowry for the bride.
Prokofy came to his native village with his beloved wife, a small proud woman who wrapped herself in a patterned shawl. Her husband taught her not to hide her face from strangers, and with her beautiful, wild, dull-glimmering eyes she looked around everything around, looked directly into the eyes of Cossacks and Cossack women. Her silk shawls smelled of distant North Caucasian smells, their iridescent patterns aroused woman's envy...
Soon she gave birth to a son Prokofy, but died during childbirth. Prokofy did not marry again, together with his parents he raised a son, named after his grandfather Panteley. Pantelei Prokofievich grew up to be a good Cossack: during his service at the tsar's review, he won the first prize in trick riding and possession of military weapons. But in 1883 he injured his leg at the races, and since then he has been limping on his left leg. He received a government pension of 57 rubles a month. After the death of his father, Panteley "with great appetite" got into the economy: re-covered the house with iron, with the permission of the ataman added half a dozen virgin land to the estate, built a new barn and barn under the tin. At the age of 61, Pantelei Prokofievich was squat: he was wide, slightly stooped, but still looked like an energetic and well-formed old man. He had an explosive character, wore a silver crescent-shaped earring in his left ear, his black beard and hair had not faded yet. His father married him in 1884 to Akulina Ozhogina, a villager; she was five years younger than Panteley. A year later, their son Petro appeared in their family, all in his mother: medium height, slightly snub-nosed, with a round head in a lush wheat-colored hair, brown-eyed and ironically smiling. Six years younger from Peter, Grigory, in all guises resembles his father, a Circassian in everything: half a head taller than Peter, brightly hooked, blue tonsils of burning eyes in slightly slanting slits, sharp cheekbones covered with swarthy skin. Grigory did not yet stoop like his father, but there was something in common with his smile, animalistic. Twelve-year-old Dunyashka is her father's weakness, the favorite of all the Melekhovs - long-armed, big-eyed, also very similar to her father. Petro had been married for a year and a half to a rather beautiful Cossack Daria. Them infant brought the Melekhov family to six people. It was May 1911...
Gregory came back from the games after the first kochet. From the passage he smelled the smell of sour hops and spicy dryness of the virgin grass. On tiptoe he went into the room, undressed, carefully hung up his festive trousers with stripes, trousers, crossed himself, and lay down. On the floor lay a golden slumber of moonlight, cut with a cross of a window frame. Daria muttered in a sleepy voice:
- Tsits, you filthy child! No sleep for you, no rest. - She sang softly:

Duda deck,
Where were you?
She guarded the horses.
What did you watch out for?
horse with saddle
With golden fringe...

Grigory, falling asleep to the measured lulling creak, remembered: "Tomorrow Pyotr should go to the camps. Dasha will stay with the child ..."
Gregory was shaken by the boisterous neighing of a horse. I guessed Petrov's drill pit by his voice. With fingers exhausted from sleep, he buttoned his shirt for a long time, again he almost fell asleep to the fluid swell of the song:

Where are the geese?
They went into the reeds.
And where are the reeds?
The girls squeezed out.
And where are the girls?
The girls got married.
And where are the Cossacks?
Went to war...
Oh, war, war, war!
What did she do?!
And most importantly, girls, you:
Your suitors are there ...

broken by sleep, Grigory got to the stables, led the horse into the alley. A web of spider web tickled his face, and suddenly the dream disappeared. Along the Don ran obliquely a silvery, undulating lunar path, untravelled by anyone. Mist was sleeping over the Don, and starry millet sparkled above.
The horse behind carefully rearranges its legs. The descent to the water is bad. On the other side, a duck quack, near the shore in the mud, turned up and thumped a catfish hunting for small things in a swoop on the water. Gregory stood by the water for a long time. The shore breathed damp and insipid Prelu. From the horse's lips a fractional-foamy drop fell. There was a light, sweet emptiness in Grigory's heart. Good and thoughtless. Returning, I looked at the sunrise, the blue semi-darkness had already resolved there. Near the stables I ran into my mother.
- Is that you, Grishka?
- And then who?
Did you drink the horse?
- He drank, - reluctantly replies Gregory.
Leaning back, she carries her mother in an apron to the flood of dung, shuffling around with senile, flabby bare feet.
- I would go and encourage the Astakhovs. Stepan with our Peter was going to go.
The coolness puts a tight trembling spring into Grigory's body. Body in prickly goosebumps. After three thresholds, he runs into the Astakhovs on the porch buzzing with steps. The door is not locked. In the kitchen, Stepan is sleeping on a spread bed, his wife's head under his arm. In the thinned darkness, Grigory sees Aksinya's shirt fluffed up above the knees, birch-white outstretched female legs. He stares for a second, feeling his mouth dry and his head swell in the cast-iron ringing. He furtively rolled his eyes. He spoke hoarsely in a strange voice:
- Hey, who's there? Get up!
Aksinya sobbed from sleep:
- Oh, what is it? Someone? - fussily fumbled, her bare hand thrashed at her feet, pulling on her shirt. All of her, confused and still sleepy: a woman's dream is strong at dawn.
- It's me, - said Gregory. - Mother sent to encourage you ...
"We're at once..." said Aksinya. - You can’t fit in here ... We sleep on the floor from the heat. Stepan, get up, do you hear?
From her voice, Grigory guesses that she is embarrassed, and hurries to leave...
About thirty Cossacks left the village for the May camps. Place of gathering - parade ground. By seven o'clock, wagons with canvas booths, foot and horseback Cossacks in white canvas shirts, in equipment, stretched to the parade ground.
On the porch, Petro was hastily sewing together a cracked rope - a third, long rein, to tie a lying horse to a fence, a tree ... Pantelei paced near Petrov's horse, poured oats into the trough, occasionally shouted:
- Dunyashka, did you sew up the crackers? Did you season the salo with salt?
All in a ruddy color, Dunyashka drew bases like a swallow from the cooker to the smoker, laughingly brushed aside her father’s shouts:
- You, dad, manage your business, and I'll put my brother in such a way that Cherkassky won't turn up.
- Didn't eat? inquired Petro, drooling over the fight and nodding at the horse.
"He's chewing," his father answered sedately, checking the sweatshirts with his rough palm. It’s a small matter: a crumb or a bull will stick to a sweatshirt, and in one transition into blood it will rub the horse’s back.
- Finish Bay, give him a drink, dad.
- Grishka is taking him to the Don. Hey, Gregory, lead the horse!
A tall lean bottom with a white star on his forehead went playfully. Grigory led him out the gate, slightly touched his withers with his left hand, jumped on him, and from his place went at a wide trot. At the descent I wanted to hold back, but the horse lost its footing, became more frequent, and went downhill on a bait. Leaning back, almost lying on the horse's back, Grigory saw a woman descending downhill with buckets. He turned off the stitch and, overtaking the stirred up dust, crashed into the water.
Aksinya was descending from the mountain, swaying, and from afar shouted loudly:
- Cherkesyuk is mad! A bit of a horse did not stop! Just wait, I'll tell my father how you drive.
- But, but, neighbor, do not swear. If you see your husband off to the camps, maybe I'll get along on the farm.
- What the hell, I need you!
“The mowing will begin, if you ask,” Grigory laughed.
Aksinya deftly scooped up a pail of water from the yoke and, pinching her wind-blown skirt between her knees, glanced at Grigory.
- Well, is your Stepan going? asked Gregory.
- What do you want?
- What are you ... Ask, eh, you can not?
- Gathered. Well?
- You stay, became-be, zhalmerkoy?
- So, so be it.
The horse tore his lips from the water, chewed the flowing water with a creak, and, looking at the other side of the Don, hit the water with his front foot. Aksinya scooped up another bucket; throwing a yoke over her shoulder, she went up the mountain with a slight swing. Grigory touched the horse next. The wind ruffled Aksinya's skirt, touched the small fluffy curls on her swarthy neck. On a heavy knot of hair, a hat embroidered with colored silk flared, a pink shirt tucked into a skirt, without wrinkling, embraced a steep back and poured shoulders. Climbing the mountain, Aksinya leaned forward, a longitudinal hollow on her back clearly lay out under her shirt. Grigory saw the brown circles of his shirt, which had faded from sweat under the armpits, followed every movement with his eyes. He wanted to speak to her again.
- Will you miss your husband? BUT?
Aksinya turned her head as she walked and smiled:
- And then how. Get married, - taking a breath, she said intermittently: get married, and then you find out, they miss my friend.
Pushing his horse, leveling with her, Grigory looked into her eyes:
- And some women are already happy how they see off their husbands. Our Daria begins to get fat without Peter.
Aksinya, moving her nostrils, breathed sharply; fixing her hair, she said:
- Husband - he is not really, but draws blood. Will we marry you soon?
- I don't know about dad. Must be after service.
- Young ishsho, don't get married.
- And what?
- Dryness alone! - she looked askance; Without parting her lips, she smiled mischievously.
And then for the first time Grigory noticed that her lips were frankly passionate, puffy. He, sorting the mane into strands, said:
- There is no desire to marry. Somebody will fall in love anyway,” said Grigory.
- Did you notice? - Aksinya threw it with a hint.
- Why should I notice ... You see Stepan off ...
- Don't play with me!
- Will you hurt?
- I'll say a word to Stepan...
- I'm your Stepan...
- Look, brave, a tear will drip.
- Do not scare, Aksinya!
- I'm not scared. Your business is to play with the girls. Let them embroider your ducks, but don't look at me.
- I'll take a look.
- Well, look. - Aksinya smiled reconcilingly and left the stitch, trying to get around the horse.
Grigory turned him sideways and blocked the road.
- Let go, Grishka!
- I won't.
- Don't be stupid, I need to collect my husband.
Grigory, smiling, excited the horse; he, stepping over, pressed Aksinya to the Yar.
- Let go, devil, people out! Will they see what they think? She cast a frightened glance around and passed, frowning and not looking back.
On the porch, Petro said goodbye to his family. Gregory saddled his horse. Holding the saber, Petro hurriedly ran down the sills, took the reins from Grigory's hands. The horse, smelling the way, uneasily stepped over, foamed his lips, driving the bit in his mouth. Catching the stirrup with his foot, holding on to the bow, Petro said to his father:
- Bulls do not nurse, dad! Falls-sell. Grigory to handle the horse. And look, do not sell the steppe grass: in the meadow there is none, you yourself know what hay will be.
- Well, with God! Good hour! said the old man, crossing himself.
With a habitual movement, Petro "slammed" his downed body into the saddle, straightened behind the folds of his shirt, pulled together by a belt. The horse went to the gate. The head of a saber shone dimly in the sun, quivering in time with the steps. Daria followed with the baby in her arms. Mother, wiping her reddened nose with her sleeve and the corner of the curtain, stood in the middle of the base.
- Brother, pies! I forgot the pies! .. The pies with potatoes! .. - Dunyashka galloped to the gate like a goat.
- What are you yelling, fool! Grigory shouted angrily at her.
- There are pies left! - leaning against the gate, Dunya moaned, and on smeared hot cheeks, and from her cheeks on an everyday jacket - tears.
Daria watched her husband's shirt whitening through the dust from under her palm. Pantelei Prokofievich, shaking the rotten post at the gate, glanced at Grigory.
- Take the gate to fix it, but stop at the corner. - And after thinking, he added, as he announced the news: - Petro left!
Through the wattle fence, Grigory saw how Stepan was getting ready. Dressed up in a green woolen skirt, Aksinya brought his horse to him. Stepan, smiling, said something to her. He slowly, in a businesslike way, kissed his wife and for a long time did not remove his hand from her shoulder. His strongly tanned hand was black on Aksinya's white blouse. Stepan stood with his back to Grigory; Aksinya laughed at something and shook her head negatively. The tall black horse swayed, lifting the rider in the stirrup.
Stepan rode out of the gate with a hurried step, sat in the saddle, as if dug in, and Aksinya walked beside him, holding on to the stirrup, and looking up into his eyes with loving tenderness. So they passed the neighboring hut and disappeared around the bend. Grigory followed them with a long, unblinking glance...
On the same day, a thunderstorm gathered in the evening. A brown cloud formed over the village of Tatarskaya. The Don, tousled by the wind, threw foam-ridged waves onto the shores. Behind the livadas, dry lightning scorched the sky, crushing the earth with rare peals of thunder. Under the cloud, a kite soared open: it was pursued by ravens with a crack. A cloud, breathing a chill, walked along the Don, from the west. Behind the loan, the sky grew menacingly black, the steppe was expectantly silent. Around the village people clapped their closed shutters, old women hurried from Vespers, crossing themselves, a gray column of dust swayed on the parade ground, and the first grains of rain were already sown on the earth burdened by spring heat.
Dunyashka, dangling her pigtails, walked along the base, slammed the chicken coop door and stood in the middle of the base, anxiously peering into the darkened sky. Children were running in the street. The neighbor's eight-year-old Petka spun around, crouching on one leg, on his head, closing his eyes, his father's exorbitantly spacious cap circled, and squealed piercingly:

Rain, rain, let it go.
We'll go to the bushes.
Prayer to God
worshiper of Christ...

Dunya looked with understanding and sympathy at Petka's bare feet, densely strewn with chicks, trampling the ground with a dance. She also wanted to dance in the rain with her head wet, so that her hair would grow thick and curly; I wanted, just like Petya’s comrade, to stand upside down on the roadside dust, with the risk of falling into thorns, but my mother was looking out the window ...
Sighing, Dunyashka ran to the hut.
The rain came down hard and thick. Thunder rumbled above the roof, fragments rolled like a rolling echo beyond the Don. In the passage, father and sweaty Grishka were pulling a rolled-up log from the side.
- Harsh threads and a gypsy needle, very fast! shouted Grigory to Dunyashka.
A fire was lit in the kitchen.
To sew up the nonsense of the village Daria.
The old woman, rocking the child, muttered:
- You, the old one, are made up of inventions. You would go to bed, kerosene is getting more expensive, and you are burning. What is the catch now? Where will the plague take you? Ishsho stomp, go there, to the base of the passion of the Lord. Look, look, how it blazes! Lord Jesus Christ, Queen of Heaven...
In the kitchen for a second it became dazzlingly blue and quiet, you could hear the rain tapping on the shutters, followed by a gasp of thunder. Dunyashka squeaked and poked her face into the ravine. Darya fanned the windows and doors with small crosses. Old woman scary eyes she looked at the cat cuddling at her feet.
- Dunka! Go-oh-no you use it ... Queen of heaven, forgive me a sinner! Dunka, throw the cat to the bases. Come on, you devilry... Shtob you! ..
Grigory, dropping his bullshit, was shaking in soundless laughter.
- Well, what did you jump up? Click! shouted Panteley. - Baba, sew up fast! Nadys ishsho said, look around the nonsense.
- And what a fish now, - the old woman began to hint.
You don't understand, shut up! We'll take the most sterlet on the spit. The fish goes to the shore at once, afraid of the storm. The water must have gone murky. Come on, Dunyashka run out, listen - Erik is playing? (steppe stream - Yu.K.)
Dunya reluctantly moved sideways to the door.
- Who's going to roam? Daria can’t, she might get a cold in her chest, ”the old woman did not let up.
- Grishka and I, and with other nonsense - we will call Aksinya, some of the women.
Out of breath, Dunyashka ran in. On the eyelashes, quivering, raindrops hung. She smelled of damp black earth:
- Eric is buzzing already scary!
- Are you going to wander with us?
- A ishsho who will go?
- Let's call Bab.
- I'll go!
- Well, put on a zipun and ride to Aksinya. If he goes, let him call Malashka Frolov.
- Enta will not freeze, - Grigory smiled, - she has fat on her, like on a good boar.
- You should take dry hay, Grishunka, - advised the mother, - put it under your heart, otherwise you will catch a cold inside.
- Gregory, wind for hay. The old woman said the right word.
Soon Dunyashka brought the women. Aksinya, in a torn blouse girded with a rope and a blue underskirt, looked noticeably thinner. Laughing with Darya, she removed the handkerchief from her head, twisted her hair tighter into a knot, and, covering herself, throwing back her head, looked coldly at Grigory. Fat Malashka was tying up her stockings at the threshold, wheezing, with a cold:
- Have you got the bags? True God, we will not shake the fish!
Went to the base. Rain poured thickly on the softened earth, foamed puddles, and slid down to the Don in streams. Gregory walked ahead. His unreasonable joy washed away:
- Look, dad, there's a ditch.
- What a darkness!
“Hold on, Aksyushka, we’ll be in prison together,” Malashka laughs hoarsely.
- Look, Grigory, is there a pier for the Maidannikovs?
- She is.
- From here ... to conceive ... - mastering the whipping wind, Panteley rustles.
- Can't hear it, uncle! - Malasha wheezes.
- Wander, with God ... I'm from the depths. I speak from the depths... Malyashka, the devil is deaf, where are you pulling? I will go from the depths! .. Gregory! Grishka! Let Aksinya away from the shore!
Don has a moaning roar. The wind tears the slanting cloth of the rain to shreds. Feeling the bottom with his feet, Grigory plunged into the water up to his waist. A sticky cold crept up to his chest, tightened his heart like a hoop. In the face, in tightly closed eyes, as if with a puff whip, a wave lashes. The nonsense is inflated with a ball, pulls inward. Gregory's feet, shod in woolen stockings, slide along the sandy bottom. Kamol nonsense is torn from the hands. Deeper, deeper... Ledge. Legs are torn off. The current impetuously carries to the middle, sucks.
Gregory right hand forcefully pushes towards the shore. The black, rippling depths frighten him more than ever. The foot joyfully steps on the shaky bottom. Some kind of fish knocks on the knee.
- Go deeper! - from somewhere out of the viscous black follows the voice of the father.
The delusion, tilting, again creeps into the depths, again the current tears the earth from under its feet, and Grigory, raising his head, swims, spitting.
- Aksinya, is she alive?
- Pokedova is alive.
- Does it stop raining?
- The little one stops, at once the big one starts moving.
- You go slowly. The father will hear - he will swear.
- I was frightened of my father, but also ...
They drag on for a minute in silence. Water, like sticky dough, knits every movement.
- Grisha, near the shore, kill karsha. Need to circle.
A terrible push throws Gregory far away. A roaring splash, as if from a ravine a lump of rock fell into the water.
- Ah-ah-ah-ah! - Aksinya squeals somewhere near the shore.
Frightened Grigory, having emerged, swims to the cry.
- Aksinya! - Wind and flowing water noise. - Aksinya! - cold with fear, shouts Grigory.
- Hey! .. Gri-g-o-r-i-i-y!
Gregory throws a wave. Something viscous underfoot, grabbed his hand - nonsense.
- Grisha, where are you? .. - Aksinya's crying voice.
Why didn't she answer? yells Grigory angrily, crawling ashore on all fours.
They, squatting on their haunches, trembling dismantle the nonsense tangled in a lump. A moon peeps through a hole in a torn cloud. Behind the loan, thunder rumbles restrainedly. The earth is glossy with unabsorbed moisture. The sky, washed by rain, is strict and clear.
Unraveling the nonsense, Grigory peers at Aksinya. Her face is chalky-pale, but her red, slightly twisted lips are already laughing:
- How it will kick me ashore, - she says, taking a breath, - she has lost her mind. Fled to death! I thought you were drowning.
Their hands collide. Aksinya tries to put her hand into the sleeve of his shirt:
“How warm you have something in your sleeve,” she says plaintively, “and I froze. Colic went through the body.
- Here he is, the damned catfish, where he hit! - Gregory pushes a hole in the middle of the nonsense about an arshin and a half in diameter.
Someone is running from the scythe. Grigory guesses Dunyashka. Still from afar shouts to her:
- Do you have threads?
- Tutochka. - Dunyashka, out of breath, runs up: - Why are you sitting here? Batyanka sent, shtob quickly went to the spit. We caught a bag of sterlets there! - in the voice of Dunyashka undisguised triumph.
Aksinya, clanging her teeth, sews up a hole in the nonsense. At a trot, to keep warm, they run to the spit. Pantelei twists the cigarette with his fingers, ribbed with water and plump, like those of a drowned man; dancing, boasting:
- Once wandered - eight pieces, and another time ... - he takes a breather, lights up and silently points his foot at the bag.
Aksinya peers in with curiosity. There is a grinding crack in the bag: a sterlet, still alive, is rubbing.
- What did you get away with?
- Catfish squandered nonsense.
- Stitched up?
- Somehow, the cells got hooked ...
- Well, let's get to the knee and go home. Wander, Grishka, why did you get the hang of it?
Grigory steps over with stiff legs. Aksinya is trembling so that Grigory feels her trembling through his delirium.
- Don't shake!
- And I would be glad, but I won’t take my breath away.
- Come on, that's what ... Let's climb out, damn this fish!
A large carp strikes through the log with a gilded corkscrew. Teaching a step, Grigory bends the nonsense. Aksinya, bent over, runs out onto the shore. Water rushes back on the sand, fish trembles.
- Shall we go through the borrowing?
- Forest closer.
- Hey, are you there soon?
- Come on, let's catch up. Let's rinse the nonsense.
Wincing, Aksinya wringed out her skirt, picked up the bag with the catch on her shoulders, and almost trotted along the spit. Gregory was talking nonsense. A hundred sazhens passed. Aksinya groaned.
- My urine is gone! Leg cramps!
- Here is last year's mop, can you get warm?
- And then. If you reach Pokedov's house, you can measure it.
Grigory rolled his mop cap on its side and dug a hole. The stale hay wafted with the hot smell of preli.
- Get in the middle. It's like in the oven.
Aksinya, throwing her sack, buried herself up to her neck in the hay:
- That's a blessing!
Shivering from the cold, Grigory lay down beside him. From Aksinya's wet hair came a gentle, exciting smell. She lay with her head thrown back, breathing steadily through her half-open mouth.
“Your hair smells like a drunkard.” You know, like a sort of white flower... - Grigory whispered, leaning over.
She said nothing. Foggy and distant was her gaze, directed at the detriment of the shining moon. Grigory, putting his hand out of his pocket, suddenly pulled her head to him. She rushed sharply, half-rising:
- Let go!
- Shut up.
- Let me go, or I'll make a noise!
- Wait, Aksinya...
- Uncle Panteley! ..
- Are you lost? - very close, from the thickets of hawthorn Pantelei answered.
Grigory, clenching his teeth, jumped from the hay.
- What are you making noise? Ay lost? the old man asked as he approached.
Aksinya was standing near the shock, straightening a handkerchief that had been knocked to the back of her head. Steam was rising above her.
- There is no way to get lost, but I almost froze!
- Ty, woman, and here, looking, mop. Get warm.
Aksinya smiled, bending over the sack...

Text restored by Anatoly Sidorchenko, Candidate of Philosophical Sciences, edited by Yuri Kuvaldin