Bazhov warm bread. Paustovsky "Warm bread"

The commander of the cavalry detachment left a horse in the village, wounded in the leg by a fragment of a German shell. The horse was sheltered by the miller Pankrat, whose mill had not been working for a long time. The miller, who is considered a sorcerer in the village, cured the horse, but he could not feed him, and he walked around the yards, looking for food, begging.

It was said in the village that nobody's horse, or rather, a public one, and everyone considered it their duty to feed him. In addition, the horse is wounded, suffered from the enemy.

In the same village, the silent and distrustful boy Filka, nicknamed "Well, you," lived with his grandmother. To any suggestion or remark, Filka gloomily replied: “Come on!”.

The winter was warm that year. Pankrat managed to repair the mill and was about to grind the flour that the village housewives had run out of.

One day a horse wandered into Filka's yard. The boy at that moment was chewing a slice of well-salted bread. The horse reached for the bread, but Filka hit him on the lips, threw the chunk far into the snow and shouted rudely at the animal.

And after this malevolent shout, ‹…› those amazing things happened, about which even now people are talking, shaking their heads, because they themselves do not know whether it was or nothing like that happened.

Tears rolled down from the eyes of the horse, he neighed plaintively and lingeringly, waved his tail, and a snowstorm swept over the village. Locking himself in the hut, the frightened Filka heard "a thin and short whistle - this is how a horse's tail whistles when an angry horse hits its sides with it."

The blizzard subsided only in the evening, and then Filkin's grandmother returned home, stuck with a neighbor. At night, a severe frost came to the village - everyone heard "the creak of his boots on hard snow." The frost squeezed the thick logs of the huts so hard that they cracked and burst.

The grandmother burst into tears and told Filka that “imminent death” awaits everyone - the wells are frozen, there is no water, all the flour is over, and the mill will not work, because the river is frozen to the bottom.

From the grandmother, the boy learned that the same severe frost fell on their district a hundred years ago.

Ten years after that, neither trees nor grasses bloomed. The seeds in the ground withered and disappeared. Our land was naked. Every animal ran around her side - he was afraid of the desert.

And it happened "out of human malice." Then an old soldier passed through the village, a cripple with a piece of wood instead of a leg. He asked for bread in one of the huts, and the owner, an angry and noisy man, insulted the cripple - he threw a moldy crust on the ground in front of him. Then a soldier whistled, and "the storm swirled the village." And that wicked man died "from the cooling of his heart." It can be seen that an evil offender has now wound up in the village, and will not let go of the frost until this person corrects his villainy. How to fix everything, the cunning and learned Pankrat knows.

At night, Filka quietly left the hut, with difficulty reached the mill and told Pankrat how he had offended the horse. The miller advised the boy to "invent a salvation from the cold" in order to remove his guilt before people and a wounded horse.

This conversation was listened to by a magpie, who lived with the miller in the passage. She jumped out and flew south. Meanwhile, Filka decided in the morning to gather all the village children and cut through the ice at the mill flume. Then water will flow, the mill wheel will spin, and there will be fresh, warm bread in the village. The miller approved Filkin's idea and decided to call the village old men to help the children.

The next morning everyone gathered, lit fires and worked until noon. And then the sky was covered with clouds, a warm south wind blew and the earth began to thaw. By evening, the magpie returned home, and the first hole appeared at the mill. The magpie shook its tail and crackled - boasted to the crows that it was she who flew to the warm sea, woke up the summer wind that was sleeping in the mountains, and asked him to help people.

Everyone knows that the magpie is the most talkative bird in the world, and therefore the crows did not believe her - they only croaked among themselves: that, they say, the old one was lying again.

Pankrat grinded flour, and in the evening stoves were heated all over the village, and bread was baked.

In the morning, Filka brought a loaf of warm bread to the mill and treated his horse to it. At first, he was frightened of the boy, but then he ate bread, "put his head on Filka's shoulder, sighed and closed his eyes from satiety and pleasure."

Everyone rejoiced at this reconciliation, only the old magpie crackled angrily - apparently, boasted that it was she who reconciled Filka and the horse. But no one listened to her.

Paustovsky Konstantin

warm bread

Konstantin Georgievich Paustovsky

warm bread

When the cavalrymen passed through the village of Berezhki, a German shell exploded on the outskirts and wounded a black horse in the leg. The commander left the wounded horse in the village, and the detachment went further, dusting and ringing the bits, left, rolled behind the groves, over the hills, where the wind shook the ripe rye.

The miller Pankrat took the horse. The mill has not worked for a long time, but the flour dust has forever eaten into Pankrat. She lay with a gray crust on his quilted jacket and cap. From under the cap, the quick eyes of the miller looked at everyone. Pankrat was an ambulance to work, an angry old man, and the guys considered him a sorcerer.

Pankrat cured the horse. The horse remained at the mill and patiently carried clay, manure and poles - helping Pankrat to repair the dam.

It was difficult for Pankrat to feed the horse, and the horse began to go around the yards to beg. He would stand, snort, knock with his muzzle on the gate, and, you see, they would bring him beet tops, or stale bread, or, it happened even, sweet carrots. It was said in the village that nobody's horse, or rather, a public one, and everyone considered it their duty to feed him. In addition, the horse is wounded, suffered from the enemy.

The boy Filka lived in Berezhki with his grandmother, nicknamed "Well, you." Filka was taciturn, incredulous, and his favorite expression was: "Come on!". Whether the neighbor's boy suggested that he walk on stilts or look for green cartridges, Filka answered in an angry bass: "Come on! Look for yourself!" When the grandmother reprimanded him for his unkindness, Filka turned away and muttered: "Come on, you! I'm tired!"

The winter was warm this year. Smoke hung in the air. Snow fell and immediately melted. Wet crows sat on the chimneys to dry off, jostled, croaked at each other. Near the mill flume, the water did not freeze, but stood black, still, and ice floes swirled in it.

Pankrat had repaired the mill by that time and was going to grind bread - the housewives complained that the flour was running out, each had two or three days left, and the grain lay unground.

On one of these warm gray days, a wounded horse knocked with its muzzle on the gate to Filka's grandmother. Grandmother was not at home, and Filka was sitting at the table and chewing a piece of bread, heavily sprinkled with salt.

Filka reluctantly got up and went out the gate. The horse shifted from foot to foot and reached for the bread. "Come on you! Devil!" - Filka shouted and hit the horse on the lips with a backhand. The horse staggered back, shook his head, and Filka threw the bread far into the loose snow and shouted:

You won’t get enough of you, Christ-lovers! There is your bread! Go dig it with your face from under the snow! Go dig!

And after this malicious shout, those amazing things happened in Berezhki, about which people still talk, shaking their heads, because they themselves do not know whether it was or nothing like that happened.

A tear rolled down from the horse's eyes. The horse neighed plaintively, drawlingly, waved his tail, and immediately howled in the bare trees, in the hedges and chimneys, a piercing wind whistled, snow blew up, powdered Filka's throat. Filka rushed back into the house, but could not find the porch in any way - it was already snowy all around and whipped into his eyes. Frozen straw flew from the roofs in the wind, birdhouses broke, torn shutters slammed. And columns of snow dust rose higher and higher from the surrounding fields, rushing to the village, rustling, spinning, overtaking each other.

Filka finally jumped into the hut, locked the door, said: "Come on!" - and listened. The blizzard roared, maddened, but through its roar Filka heard a thin and short whistle - this is how a horse's tail whistles when an angry horse hits its sides with it.

The blizzard began to subside in the evening, and only then was Grandmother Filkin able to get to her hut from her neighbor. And by nightfall, the sky turned green as ice, the stars froze to the vault of heaven, and a prickly frost passed through the village. No one saw him, but everyone heard the creak of his boots on the hard snow, heard how the frost, mischievous, squeezed the thick logs in the walls, and they cracked and burst.

The grandmother, crying, told Filka that the wells had probably already frozen over and now imminent death awaited them. There is no water, everyone has run out of flour, and now the mill will not be able to work, because the river has frozen to the very bottom.

Filka also wept with fear when the mice began to run out of the underground and bury themselves under the stove in the straw, where there was still some warmth left. "Come on you! Damned!" - he shouted at the mice, but the mice kept climbing out of the underground. Filka climbed onto the stove, covered himself with a sheepskin coat, shook all over and listened to the grandmother's lamentations.

A hundred years ago, the same severe frost fell on our district, - said the grandmother. - He froze wells, beat birds, dried forests and gardens to the roots. Ten years after that, neither trees nor grasses bloomed. The seeds in the ground withered and disappeared. Our land was naked. Every animal ran around her side - he was afraid of the desert.

Why did that frost strike? Filka asked.

From human malice, - answered the grandmother. - An old soldier was walking through our village, asked for bread in the hut, and the owner, an evil peasant, sleepy, noisy, take it and give me only a stale crust. And then he didn’t give it to his hands, but threw it on the floor and said: “Here you are! Chew!”. - "It's impossible for me to lift bread from the floor," the soldier says. "I have a piece of wood instead of a leg." - "Where did you put your leg?" - the man asks. "I lost my leg in the Balkan mountains in the Turkish battle," the soldier replies. "Nothing. Once you're hefty hungry, you'll get up," the man laughed. "There are no valets for you here." The soldier groaned, contrived, lifted the crust and sees - this is not bread, but one green mold. One poison! Then the soldier went out into the yard, whistled - and at once a blizzard broke, a blizzard, the storm swirled the village, the roofs were torn off, and then a severe frost struck. And the man died.

Why did he die? Filka asked hoarsely.

From the cooling of the heart, - the grandmother answered, paused and added: - To know, and now a bad person, an offender, has wound up in Berezhki, and has done an evil deed. That's why it's cold.

What to do now, grandma? Filka asked from under his sheepskin coat. - Really die?

Why die? Need to hope.

That a bad person will correct his villainy.

And how to fix it? asked Filka, sobbing.

And Pankrat knows about it, the miller. He is a smart old man, a scientist. You need to ask him. Can you really run to the mill in such a cold? The bleeding will stop immediately.

Come on, Pankrat! - said Filka and fell silent.

At night he climbed down from the stove. Grandma was sleeping on the bench. Outside the windows, the air was blue, thick, terrible.

In the clear sky above the osokors stood the moon, adorned like a bride with pink crowns.

Filka wrapped his sheepskin coat around him, jumped out into the street and ran to the mill. The snow sang underfoot, as if an artel of merry sawyers sawed down a birch grove across the river. It seemed that the air froze and between the earth and the moon there was only a burning void, so clear that if it lifted a speck of dust a kilometer from the earth, then it would be visible and it would glow and twinkle like a small star.

The black willows near the mill dam turned gray from the cold. Their branches gleamed like glass. The air pricked Filka's chest. He could no longer run, but walked heavily, raking the snow with his felt boots.

Filka knocked on the window of Pankrat's hut. Immediately in the barn behind the hut, a wounded horse neighed and beat with a hoof. Filka groaned, squatted down in fear, hid. Pankrat opened the door, grabbed Filka by the collar and dragged him into the hut.

Sit down by the stove, - he said. - Tell me before you freeze.

Filka, weeping, told Pankrat how he offended the wounded horse and how frost fell on the village because of this.

Yes, - Pankrat sighed, - your business is bad! It turns out that everyone is lost because of you. Why hurt the horse? For what? You stupid citizen!

Filka sniffled and wiped his eyes with his sleeve.

You stop crying! Pankrat said sternly. - Roar you all masters. A little naughty - now in a roar. But I just don't see the point in that. My mill stands as if sealed with frost forever, but there is no flour, and no water, and we don’t know what to think of.

What should I do now, grandfather Pankrat? Filka asked.

Invent salvation from the cold. Then the people will not be your fault. And in front of a wounded horse - too. You will be a pure person, cheerful. Everyone will pat you on the back and forgive you. It's clear?

Well, think of it. I'll give you an hour and a quarter.

A magpie lived in Pankrat's hallway. She did not sleep from the cold, she sat on the collar and eavesdropped. Then she galloped sideways, looking around, to the gap under the door. Jumped out, jumped on the railing and flew straight south. The magpie was experienced, old, and purposely flew near the very ground, because from the villages and forests it still drew warmth and the magpie was not afraid to freeze. No one saw her, only a fox in an aspen hole stuck her muzzle out of the hole, turned her nose, noticed how a magpie swept across the sky like a dark shadow, shied back into the hole and sat for a long time, scratching herself and thinking: where did the magpie go on such a terrible night?

And Filka at that time was sitting on a bench, fidgeting, inventing.

Pankrat cured the horse. The horse remained at the mill and patiently carried clay, manure and poles - helping Pankrat to repair the dam.

The boy Filka lived in Berezhki with his grandmother, nicknamed "Well, you." Filka was silent, incredulous, and his favorite expression was: "Come on!". Whether the neighbor's boy suggested that he walk on stilts or look for green cartridges, Filka answered in an angry bass: "Come on! Look for yourself!" When the grandmother reprimanded him for his unkindness, Filka turned away and muttered: "Come on, you! I'm tired!"

Pankrat had repaired the mill by that time and was going to grind bread - the housewives complained that the flour was running out, each had two or three days left, and the grain lay unground.

You won’t get enough of you, Christ-lovers! There is your bread! Go dig it with your face from under the snow! Go dig!

Why did that frost strike? Filka asked.

From human malice, - answered the grandmother. - An old soldier was walking through our village, asked for bread in the hut, and the owner, an evil peasant, sleepy, noisy, take it and give me only a stale crust. And then he didn’t give it to his hands, but threw it on the floor and said: “Here you are! Chew!”. “It’s impossible for me to lift bread from the floor,” the soldier says. “I have a piece of wood instead of a leg.” - "Where did you put your leg?" the man asks. "I lost my leg in the Balkan mountains in the Turkish battle," the soldier replies. "Nothing. Once you're hefty hungry, you'll get up," the man laughed. "There are no valets for you here." The soldier groaned, contrived, lifted the crust and saw - this is not bread, but one green mold. One poison! Then the soldier went out into the yard, whistled - and at once a blizzard broke, a blizzard, the storm swirled the village, the roofs were torn off, and then a severe frost struck. And the man died.

Why did he die? Filka asked hoarsely.

From the cooling of the heart, - answered the grandmother, paused and added: - To know, and

now a bad man, an offender, has wound up in Berezhki, and has done an evil deed. That's why it's cold.

What to do now, grandma? Filka asked from under his sheepskin coat. - Really

die?

Why die? Need to hope.

That a bad person will correct his villainy.

And how to fix it? asked Filka, sobbing.

And Pankrat knows about it, the miller. He is a smart old man, a scientist. You need to ask him. Can you really run to the mill in such a cold? The bleeding will stop immediately.

Come on, Pankrat! - said Filka and fell silent.

At night he climbed down from the stove. Grandma was sleeping on the bench. Outside the windows, the air was blue, thick, terrible.

In the clear sky above the osokors stood the moon, adorned like a bride with pink crowns.

Filka wrapped his sheepskin coat around him, jumped out into the street and ran to the mill. The snow sang underfoot, as if an artel of merry sawyers sawed down a birch grove across the river. It seemed that the air froze and between the earth and the moon there was only one void - burning and so clear that if it lifted a speck of dust a kilometer from the earth, then it would be visible and it would glow and twinkle like a small star.

Sit down by the stove, - he said. - Tell me before you freeze.

Filka, weeping, told Pankrat how he offended the wounded horse and how frost fell on the village because of this.

Yes, - Pankrat sighed, - your business is bad! It turns out that everyone is lost because of you. Why hurt the horse? For what? You stupid citizen!

Filka sniffled and wiped his eyes with his sleeve.

What should I do now, grandfather Pankrat? Filka asked.

Well, think of it. I'll give you an hour and a quarter.

A magpie lived in Pankrat's hallway. She did not sleep from the cold, sat on the collar - eavesdropped. Then she galloped sideways, looking around, to the gap under the door. Jumped out, jumped on the railing and flew straight south. The magpie was experienced, old, and purposely flew near the ground itself, because from the villages and forests it still pulled warmth and the magpie was not afraid to freeze. No one saw her, only a fox in an aspen hole stuck her muzzle out of the hole, turned her nose, noticed how a magpie swept across the sky like a dark shadow, shied back into the hole and sat for a long time, scratching herself and thinking: where did the magpie go on such a terrible night?

And Filka at that time was sitting on a bench, fidgeting, inventing.

Well, - Pankrat said at last, trampling on a shag cigarette, - your time is up. Spread it! There will be no grace period.

I, grandfather Pankrat, - said Filka, - as soon as dawn, I will gather the guys from all over the village. We will take crowbars, ice picks, axes, we will cut ice at the tray near the mill until we get to the water and it will flow onto the wheel. As the water goes, you let the mill! Turn the wheel twenty times, it will warm up and start grinding. There will be, therefore, flour, and water, and universal salvation.

Look, you are smart! - said the miller, - Under the ice, of course, there is water. And if the ice is as thick as your height, what will you do?

Yes, well, him! Filka said. - Let's break through, guys, and such ice!

What if you freeze?

We will burn fires.

And if the guys do not agree to pay for your nonsense with their hump? If they say: "Yes, well, it's his own fault - let the ice itself break off."

Agree! I will beg them. Our guys are good.

Well, go get the guys. And I'll talk with the old people. Maybe the old people will put on their mittens and take up the crowbars.

On frosty days, the sun rises crimson, in heavy smoke. And this morning such a sun rose over Berezhki. The frequent sound of crowbars was heard on the river. Fires crackled. The guys and old people worked from the very dawn, chipped off the ice at the mill. And no one in the heat of the moment noticed that in the afternoon the sky was overcast with low clouds and a steady and warm wind blew over the gray willows. And when they noticed that the weather had changed, the branches of the willows had already thawed, and the wet birch grove rustled merrily, loudly behind the river. The air smelled of spring, of manure.

The wind was blowing from the south. It got warmer every hour. Icicles fell from the roofs and smashed with a clang.

The ravens crawled out from under the jams and again dried themselves on the pipes, jostled, croaked.

Only the old magpie was missing. She arrived in the evening, when the ice began to settle from the warmth, work at the mill went quickly and the first polynya with dark water appeared.

The boys pulled off their triplets and cheered. Pankrat said that if it were not for the warm wind, then, perhaps, the guys and old people would not have chipped the ice. And the magpie was sitting on a willow above the dam, chirping, shaking its tail, bowing in all directions and telling something, but no one but the crows understood it. And the magpie said that she flew to the warm sea, where the summer wind was sleeping in the mountains, woke him up, cracked him about the severe frost and begged him to drive away this frost, to help people.

The wind seemed not to dare to refuse her, the magpie, and blew, rushed over the fields, whistling and laughing at the frost. And if you listen carefully, you can already hear warm water bubbling and murmuring along the ravines under the snow, washing the roots of lingonberries, breaking ice on the river.

Everyone knows that the magpie is the most talkative bird in the world, and therefore the crows did not believe her - they only croaked among themselves: that, they say, the old one was lying again.

So, until now, no one knows whether the magpie spoke the truth, or whether she invented all this from boasting. Only one thing is known that by the evening the ice cracked, dispersed, the guys and old people pressed - and water poured into the mill flume with a noise.

The old wheel creaked - icicles fell from it - and slowly turned. The millstones gnashed, then the wheel turned faster, and suddenly the whole old mill shook, started shaking and began to knock, creak, grind grain. Pankrat poured grain, and hot flour poured from under the millstone into sacks. The women dipped their chilled hands into it and laughed.

Ringing birch firewood was chopping in all the yards. The huts glowed from the hot stove fire. The women were kneading the tight sweet dough. And everything that was alive in the huts - guys, cats, even mice - all this spun around the housewives, and the housewives slapped the guys on the back with a white hand from flour, so as not to climb into the very mess and interfere.

At night, there was such a smell of warm bread with a ruddy crust, with cabbage leaves burnt to the bottom, that even the foxes crawled out of their holes, sat in the snow, trembled and whined softly, thinking how to manage to steal from people at least a piece of this wonderful bread.

The next morning, Filka came with the guys to the mill. The wind drove loose clouds across the blue sky and did not allow them to take a breath for a minute, and therefore cold shadows, then hot sunspots, alternately rushed across the earth.

Filka was dragging a loaf of fresh bread, and a very small boy, Nikolka, was holding a wooden salt shaker with coarse yellow salt. Pankrat came out on the threshold and asked:

What is the phenomenon? Would you bring me some bread and salt? For what such merits?

Not really! - shouted the guys. - You will be special. And this is a wounded horse. From Filka. We want to reconcile them.

Well, - said Pankrat, - not only a person needs an apology. Now I will introduce you to the horse in kind.

Pankrat opened the gates of the shed and released his horse. The horse came out, stretched out his head, neighed - he smelled the smell of fresh bread. Filka broke the loaf, salted the bread from the salt shaker and handed it to the horse. But the horse did not take the bread, began to finely sort it out with his feet, and backed into the barn. Filka was scared. Then Filka wept loudly in front of the whole village.

The guys whispered and fell silent, and Pankrat patted the horse on the neck and said:

Don't be scared, Boy! Filka is not an evil person. Why offend him? Take bread, put up!

The horse shook his head, thought, then carefully stretched out his neck and finally took the bread from Filka's hands with soft lips. He ate one piece, sniffed Filka and took the second piece. Filka grinned through his tears, and the horse chewed bread and snorted. And when he ate all the bread, he put his head on Filka's shoulder, sighed and closed his eyes from satiety and pleasure.

Everyone smiled and rejoiced. Only the old magpie sat on the willow and cracked angrily: she must have boasted again that she alone managed to reconcile the horse with Filka. But no one listened to her and did not understand, and the magpie became more and more angry from this and cracked like a machine gun.

Konstantin Paustovsky, Warm bread, the work of Konstantin Paustovsky, stories by Konstantin Paustovsky, download the works of Konstantin Paustovsky, download for free, read the text, Russian literature of the 20th century, fairy tales by Konstantin Paustovsky

Current page: 9 (total book has 11 pages) [accessible reading excerpt: 7 pages]

Alone with autumn

Autumn this year was - all the way - dry and warm. Birch groves did not turn yellow for a long time. The grass did not fade for a long time. Only a bluish haze (popularly called "mga") tightened the reaches on the Oka and distant forests.

"Mga" then thickened, then turned pale. Then through it appeared, as through frosted glass, misty visions of centuries-old willows on the banks, withered pastures and stripes of emerald winter trees.

I was sailing down the river in a boat and suddenly heard someone in the sky carefully pour water from a resonant glass vessel into another similar vessel. The water gurgled, tinkled, murmured. These sounds filled all the space between the river and the firmament. It was the cranes chirping.

I raised my head. Large shoals of cranes pulled one after another straight south. They confidently and measuredly went south, where the sun played with trembling gold in the backwaters of the Oka, flew to a warm country with the elegiac name of Taurida.

I dropped the oars and looked at the cranes for a long time. A truck swayed along the coastal country road. The driver stopped the car, got out and also began to look at the cranes.

- Happy, friends! he shouted and waved his hand after the birds.

Then he climbed into the cockpit again, but did not start the engine for a long time - probably so as not to drown out the fading heavenly ringing. He opened the side window, leaned out and looked and looked, could not tear himself away from the crane flock, leaving into the fog. And he kept listening to the splashing and play of the bird's cry over the land deserted in autumn.

A few days before this meeting with the cranes, a Moscow magazine asked me to write an article about what a “masterpiece” is and to talk about some literary masterpiece. In other words, about a perfect and impeccable work.

I chose Lermontov's poems "Testament".

Now on the river, I thought that masterpieces exist not only in art, but also in nature. Is not this cry of cranes and their majestic flight along the airways unchanged for many millennia not a masterpiece?

Birds said goodbye to Central Russia, with its swamps and thickets. From there the autumn air was already oozing, strongly reeking of wine.

Yes, what to say! Each autumn leaf was a masterpiece, the thinnest ingot of gold and bronze, sprinkled with vermilion and niello.

Each leaf was a perfect creation of nature, a work of her mysterious art, inaccessible to us, people. Only she confidently mastered this art, only nature, indifferent to our delights and praises.

I let the boat drift. The boat sailed slowly past the old park. There, among the lindens, was a small rest house. It hasn't been closed for the winter yet. From there came vague voices. Then someone turned on the tape recorder in the house, and I heard the familiar agonizing words:

Don't tempt me unnecessarily
The return of your tenderness:
Alien to the disappointed
All the delusions of the old days!

“Here,” I thought, “is another masterpiece, sad and old.”

Probably, Baratynsky, when he wrote these poems, did not think that they would remain forever in the memory of people.

Who is he, Baratynsky, exhausted by a cruel fate? Wizard? Wonderworker? Witch? Where did these words come from, filled with the bitterness of past happiness, former tenderness, always beautiful in its distance?

Baratynsky's poems contain one of the true signs of a masterpiece - they remain to live in us for a long time, almost forever. And we ourselves enrich them, as if thinking out after the poet, adding what he did not finish.

New thoughts, images, feelings are crowded in my head. Each line of verse flares up, just as every day the vast forests beyond the river rage with autumn flames more strongly. Just as the unprecedented September blooms around.

Obviously, the property of a true masterpiece is to make us equal creators after its true creator.

I said that I consider Lermontov's "Testament" a masterpiece. It is, of course, so. But almost all of Lermontov's poems are masterpieces. And “I go out alone on the road ...”, and “Last housewarming”, and “Dagger”, and “Do not laugh at my prophetic longing ...”, and “Airship”. There is no need to list them.

In addition to poetic masterpieces, Lermontov also left us prose ones, such as Taman. They are filled, like poems, with the heat of his soul. He lamented that he had hopelessly wasted this heat in the great desert of his loneliness.

So he thought. But time has shown that he did not throw a single grain of this heat into the wind. Many generations will love every line of this fearless, both in battle and in poetry, an ugly and mocking officer. Our love for him is like a return of tenderness.

From the direction of the rest home, familiar words were pouring out.

Do not multiply my blind longing,
Don't talk about the old
And, a caring friend, sick
Do not disturb him in his slumber!

Soon the singing ceased, and silence returned to the river. Only the water-jet boat hummed weakly around the bend, and, as always, to any change in the weather - it doesn’t matter to rain or to the sun - restless roosters yelled across the river at the top of their lungs. "Astrologers of the nights," as Zabolotsky called them. Zabolotsky lived here shortly before his death and often came to the Oka to the ferry. There the river people roamed and jostled all day long. There you could find all the news and hear enough stories.

- Right "Life on the Mississippi"! Zabolotsky said. - Like Mark Twain. It is worth sitting on the beach for two hours - and you can already write a book.

Zabolotsky has magnificent verses about a thunderstorm: “Shivering from torment, a lightning bolt ran over the world.” It is also, of course, a masterpiece. There is one line in these verses that imperiously encourages creativity: "I love this twilight of delight, this short night of inspiration." Zabolotsky speaks of a stormy night, when one hears "the approach of the first distant thunders - the first words in the native language."

It's hard to say why, but Zabolotsky's words about a short night of inspiration evoke a thirst for creativity, call for the creation of such life-quivering things that stand on the very verge of immortality. They can easily cross this line and remain forever in our memory - sparkling, winged, conquering the driest hearts.

In his poems, Zabolotsky often becomes on par with Lermontov, with Tyutchev - in clarity of thought, in their amazing freedom and maturity, in their powerful charm.

But let's get back to Lermontov and the Testament.

I recently read the memoirs of Bunin. About how eagerly he followed the work of Soviet writers at the end of his life. He was seriously ill, lay without getting up, but all the time he asked and even demanded that they bring him all the new books received from Moscow.

Once he was brought a poem by Tvardovsky "Vasily Terkin". Bunin began to read it, and suddenly relatives heard infectious laughter from his room. Relatives were alarmed. Bunin rarely laughed lately. We went into his room and saw Bunin sitting on the bed. His eyes were full of tears. In his hands he held a poem by Tvardovsky.

- How wonderful! - he said. - How good! Lermontov introduced an excellent colloquial language into poetry. And Tvardovsky boldly introduced into his poems and the language of a soldier, completely folk.

Bunin laughed with joy. This is what happens when we encounter something truly beautiful.

Many of our poets—Pushkin, Nekrasov, Blok (in The Twelve)—have mastered the secret of conveying the features of poetry to the ordinary, worldly language, but in Lermontov this language retains all the smallest colloquial intonations in both Borodino and Testament.

Do not dare, or something, commanders
Aliens tear up their uniforms
About Russian bayonets?

It is widely believed that there are few masterpieces. On the contrary, we are surrounded by masterpieces. We do not immediately notice how they brighten our lives, what continuous radiation - from century to century - emanates from them, gives rise to high aspirations in us and reveals to us the greatest repository of treasures - our land.

Each encounter with any masterpiece is a breakthrough into the brilliant world of human genius. It evokes amazement and joy.

Not so long ago, on a light, slightly frosty morning, I met in the Louvre with a statue of Nike of Samothrace. You couldn't take your eyes off her. She made me look at myself.

It was the harbinger of victory. She stood on the heavy prow of a Greek ship, all in a headwind, in the noise of the waves and in swift motion. She carried on her wings the news of a great victory. It was clear in every jubilant line of her body and flowing robes.

Outside the windows of the Louvre, in a bluish, whitish fog, the Parisian winter was gray - a strange winter with a marine smell of oysters heaped in mountains on street stalls, with the smell of roasted chestnuts, coffee, wine, gasoline and flowers.

The Louvre is heated by heaters. A hot wind blows from beautiful copper gratings cut into the floor. It smells a little like dust. If you come to the Louvre early, immediately after the opening, then you will see how here and there people are standing motionless on these gratings, mainly old men and women.

It is the beggars who are warming themselves. The majestic and vigilant Louvre watchmen do not touch them. They pretend that they simply do not notice these people, although, for example, an old beggar wrapped in a torn gray blanket, resembling Don Quixote, frozen in front of Delacroix's paintings, cannot but catch the eye. The visitors don't seem to notice either. They only try to quickly pass by the silent and motionless beggars.

I especially remember a little old woman with a trembling, exhausted face, in a talma that has long lost its black color, turned red from time to time, shiny talma. My grandmother used to wear such talmas, despite the polite mockery of all her daughters - my aunts. Even in those distant times, talmas went out of fashion.

The Louvre old woman smiled guiltily and from time to time began rummaging preoccupiedly in her shabby purse, although it was quite clear that there was nothing in it but an old tattered handkerchief.

The old woman wiped her watery eyes with this handkerchief. There was so much bashful grief in them that the hearts of many visitors to the Louvre must have sank.

The old woman's legs were visibly trembling, but she was afraid to step off the heater grate, lest she should immediately be occupied by another. An elderly artist stood not far behind an easel and wrote a copy of a painting by Botticelli. The artist resolutely went up to the wall, where there were chairs with velvet seats, moved one heavy chair to the heater, and sternly said to the old woman:

- Sit down!

“Mercy, madam,” the old woman muttered, sat up uncertainly, and suddenly bent low—so low that from afar it seemed as if her head were touching her knees.

The artist returned to her easel. The attendant watched the scene intently, but did not move.

painful beautiful woman with a boy of about eight she walked ahead of me. She leaned over to the boy and said something to him. The boy ran up to the artist, bowed to her back, shuffled his foot and said loudly:

- Merci, madam!

The artist nodded without turning around. The boy rushed to his mother and clung to her arm. His eyes shone as if he had done a heroic deed. Obviously, this was indeed the case. He did a small generous deed and must have experienced that state when we say with a sigh that "a mountain has fallen off our shoulders."

I walked past the beggars and thought that before this spectacle of human poverty and grief, all the world's masterpieces of the Louvre should have faded and that one could even treat them with some hostility.

But such is the luminous power of art that nothing can darken it. The marble goddesses gently bowed their heads, embarrassed by their radiant nakedness and admiring glances of people. Words of delight sounded around in many languages.

Masterpieces! Masterpieces of brush and cutter, thought and imagination! Masterpieces of poetry! Among them, Lermontov's "Testament" seems to be a modest, but undeniable masterpiece in its simplicity and completeness. “Testament” is just a conversation of a dying soldier, wounded through the chest, with his countryman:

Alone with you brother
I would like to be:
There is little in the world, they say
I have to live!
You will go home soon
Look... What is it? my destiny
To tell the truth, very
Nobody is concerned.

My father and mother are hardly
Will you stay alive...
To admit, right, it would be a pity
I make them sad;
But if one of them is alive,
Tell me I'm lazy to write
That the regiment was sent on a campaign
And not to be expected.

This stinginess of the words of a soldier dying far from his homeland gives the "Testament" a tragic force. The words “and so that they would not wait for me” contain great grief, humility before death. Behind them you see the despair of people irretrievably losing a loved one. Loved ones always seem immortal to us. They cannot turn into nothing, into emptiness, into dust, into a pale, fading memory.

In intense grief, courage, finally, in the brilliance and strength of the language, these poems by Lermontov are the purest, undeniable masterpiece. When Lermontov wrote them, he was, by our current standards, a young man, almost a boy. Just like Chekhov, when he wrote his masterpieces - "The Steppe" and "A Boring Story".

On the hills of Georgia lies the darkness of the night;
Noisy Aragva before me,
I'm sad and easy; my sadness is light;
My sorrow is full of you...

I could listen to these words a hundred and a thousand times. They, just like in the "Testament", contained all the signs of a masterpiece. First of all, the infading nature of words about unfading sadness. These words made my heart beat hard.

Another poet spoke about the eternal novelty of each masterpiece, and spoke with extraordinary accuracy. His words referred to the sea:

Everything comes.
Only you are not allowed to become familiar.
Days go by
And the years go by
And thousands, thousands of years.
In the white zeal of the waves,
Hiding
In the white spice of acacias,
Maybe you are them
Sea,
And you reduce and reduce to nothing.

Each masterpiece contains something that can never become familiar - the perfection of the human spirit, the strength of human feeling, instant responsiveness to everything that surrounds us both outside and in our inner world. The thirst to reach higher and higher limits, the thirst for perfection drives life. And creates masterpieces.

I am writing all this on an autumn night. Autumn is not visible outside the window, it is filled with darkness. But as soon as you go out onto the porch, autumn will surround you and begin to persistently breathe in your face with the coldish freshness of its mysterious black spaces, the bitter smell of the first thin ice, which bound the still waters by night, will begin to whisper with the last foliage, flying around continuously both day and night. And it will flash with the unexpected light of a star breaking through the wavy night mists.

And all this will seem to you a great masterpiece of nature, a healing gift, reminding you that life around you is full of meaning and meaning.

Fairy tales

warm bread

When the cavalrymen passed through the village of Berezhki, a German shell exploded on the outskirts and wounded a black horse in the leg. The commander left the horse in the village, and the detachment went further, dusting and jingling the bits, left, rolled over the groves, over the hills, where the wind shook the ripe rye.

Pankrat cured the horse. The horse remained at the mill and patiently carried clay, manure and poles - helping Pankrat to repair the dam.

It was difficult for Pankrat to feed the horse, and the horse began to go around the yards to beg. He would stand, snort, knock with his muzzle on the gate, and, you see, they would bring him beet tops, or stale bread, or, it happened, even sweet carrots. It was said in the village that nobody's horse, or rather, a public one, and everyone considered it his duty to feed him. In addition, the horse is wounded, suffered from the enemy.

There lived in Berezhki with his grandmother a boy named Filka, nicknamed Well You. Filka was silent, distrustful, and his favorite expression was: “Come on!” Whether the neighbor boy suggested that he walk on stilts or look for green cartridges, Filka answered in an angry bass: “Come on! Look for yourself! When the grandmother reprimanded him for his unkindness, Filka turned away and muttered: “Come on! Tired!”

Pankrat had repaired the mill by that time and was going to grind bread - the housewives complained that the flour was running out, each had two or three days left, and the grain lay unground.

On one of these warm gray days, the wounded horse knocked with his muzzle on the gate to Filka's grandmother. Grandmother was not at home, and Filka was sitting at the table and chewing a piece of bread, heavily sprinkled with salt.

Filka reluctantly got up and went out the gate. The horse shifted from foot to foot and reached for the bread. "Yah you! Devil!" Filka shouted and hit the horse on the lips with a backhand. The horse staggered back, shook his head, and Filka threw the bread far into the loose snow and shouted:

“You won’t save enough on you, on the Christians!” There is your bread! Go dig it with your face from under the snow! Go dig!

Filka finally jumped into the hut, locked the door, said: “Come on!” - and listened. The blizzard roared, maddened, but through its roar Filka heard a thin and short whistle - this is how a pony's tail whistles when an angry horse hits its sides with it.

The blizzard began to subside in the evening, and only then was Grandmother Filkin able to get to her hut from her neighbor. And by night the sky turned green as ice, the stars froze to the vault of heaven, and a prickly frost passed through the village. No one saw him, but everyone heard the creak of his boots on the hard snow, heard how the frost, mischievous, squeezed thick logs in the walls, and they cracked and burst.

Filka also wept with fear when the mice began to run out of the underground and bury themselves under the stove in the straw, where there was still a little warmth. "Yah you! Damned!" he shouted at the mice, but the mice kept climbing out of the underground. Filka climbed onto the stove, covered himself with a sheepskin coat, shook all over and listened to the grandmother's lamentations.

“A hundred years ago, the same severe frost fell on our district,” the grandmother said. “He froze wells, killed birds, dried forests and gardens to the roots. Ten years after that, neither trees nor grasses bloomed. The seeds in the ground withered and disappeared. Our land was naked. Every animal ran around her side - he was afraid of the desert.

- Why did that frost come? Filka asked.

“From human malice,” answered the grandmother. - An old soldier was walking through our village, asked for bread in the hut, and the owner, an angry peasant, sleepy, noisy, take it and give me only a stale crust. And he didn’t give it to his hands, but threw it on the floor and said: “Here you are! Chew!" “It’s impossible for me to lift bread from the floor,” the soldier says. “I have a piece of wood instead of a leg.” “Where did you put your leg?” the man asks. “I lost my leg in the Balkan mountains in the Turkish battle,” the soldier replies. "Nothing. Once you're really hungry, you'll get up, - the man laughed. “There are no valets for you here.” The soldier groaned, contrived, lifted the crust and saw - this is not bread, but one green mold. One poison! Then the soldier went out into the yard, whistled - and at once a blizzard broke, a blizzard, the storm swirled the village, the roofs were torn off, and then a severe frost struck. And the man died.

- Why did he die? Filka asked hoarsely.

- From the cooling of the heart, - the grandmother answered, paused and added: - To know, and now a bad person, an offender, has wound up in Berezhki, and has done an evil deed. That's why it's cold.

"What are you going to do now, grandma?" Filka asked from under his sheepskin coat. - Is it really to die?

- Why die? Need to hope.

- For what?

- That the bad man will correct his villainy.

– How to fix it? asked Filka, sobbing.

“And Pankrat knows about it, miller. He is a cunning old man, a scientist. You need to ask him. Can you really run to the mill in such a cold? The bleeding will stop immediately.

- Come on, Pankrat! - said Filka and fell silent.

At night he climbed down from the stove. Grandma was sleeping on the bench. Outside the windows, the air was blue, thick, terrible. In the clear sky above the osokors stood the moon, adorned like a bride with pink crowns.

Filka wrapped his sheepskin coat around him, jumped out into the street and ran to the mill. The snow sang underfoot, as if an artel of merry sawyers sawed down a birch grove across the river. It seemed that the air froze and between the earth and the moon there was only one void - burning and so clear that if a speck of dust was lifted a kilometer from the earth, then it would be visible and it would glow and twinkle like a small star.

“Sit down by the stove,” he said. Tell me before you freeze.

Filka, weeping, told Pankrat how he offended the wounded horse and how frost fell on the village because of this.

- Yes, - Pankrat sighed, - your business is bad! It turns out that everyone is lost because of you. Why hurt the horse? For what? You stupid citizen!

Filka sniffled and wiped his eyes with his sleeve.

- Stop crying! Pankrat said sternly. - You are all masters of roaring. A little naughty - now in a roar. But I just don't see the point in that. My mill stands as if sealed with frost forever, but there is no flour, and no water, and we don’t know what to come up with.

- What should I do now, grandfather Pankrat? Filka asked.

- Invent salvation from the cold. Then the people will not be your fault. And in front of a wounded horse, too. You will be a pure person, cheerful. Everyone will pat you on the back and forgive you. It's clear?

- Well, think about it. I'll give you an hour and a quarter.

A magpie lived in Pankrat's hallway. She did not sleep from the cold, sat on the collar - eavesdropped. Then she galloped sideways, looking around, to the gap under the door. Jumped out, jumped on the railing and flew straight south. The magpie was experienced, old, and deliberately flew near the very ground, because from the villages and forests it still pulled warmth and the magpie was not afraid to freeze. No one saw her, only a fox in an aspen hole stuck her muzzle out of the hole, turned her nose, noticed how a magpie swept across the sky like a dark shadow, shied back into the hole and sat for a long time, scratching herself and thinking - where did the magpie go on such a terrible night ?

And Filka at that time was sitting on a bench, fidgeting, inventing.

“Well,” said Pankrat at last, trampling on his shag cigarette, “your time is up. Spread it! There will be no grace period.

- I, grandfather Pankrat, - said Filka, - as soon as dawn, I will gather the guys from all over the village. We will take crowbars, picks, axes, we will cut ice at the tray near the mill, until we get to the water and it will flow onto the wheel. As the water goes, you let the mill! Turn the wheel twenty times, it will warm up and start grinding. There will be, therefore, flour, and water, and universal salvation.

- Look at you, what a smart one! the miller said. - Under the ice, of course, there is water. And if the ice is as thick as your height, what will you do?

- Yes, well, him! Filka said. - We will break through, guys, and such ice!

- What if you freeze?

- We'll burn fires.

- And if the guys do not agree to pay for your nonsense with their hump? If they say: “Yes, well, him! It's his own fault - let the ice itself break off.

- Agree! I will beg them. Our guys are good.

- Well, go ahead, collect the guys. And I'll talk with the old people. Maybe the old people will put on their mittens and take up the crowbars.

On frosty days, the sun rises crimson, in heavy smoke. And this morning such a sun rose over Berezhki. The frequent sound of crowbars was heard on the river. Fires crackled. The guys and old people worked from the very dawn, chipped off the ice at the mill. And no one in the heat of the moment noticed that in the afternoon the sky was overcast with low clouds and an even warm wind blew over the gray willows. And when they noticed that the weather had changed, the branches of the willows had already thawed, and the wet birch grove rustled merrily, booming across the river. The air smelled of spring, of manure.

The wind was blowing from the south. It got warmer every hour. Icicles fell from the roofs and smashed with a clang. The ravens crawled out from under the jams and again dried themselves on the pipes, jostled, croaked.

Only the old magpie was missing. She arrived in the evening, when the ice began to settle from the warmth, work at the mill went quickly and the first polynya with dark water appeared.

The boys pulled off the triplets and shouted "Hurrah." Pankrat said that if it were not for the warm wind, then, perhaps, the guys and old people would not have chipped the ice. And the magpie was sitting on a willow above the dam, chirping, shaking its tail, bowing in all directions and telling something, but no one but the crows understood it. And the magpie said that she flew to the warm sea, where the summer wind was sleeping in the mountains, woke him up, cracked him about the severe frost and begged him to drive away this frost, to help people.

The wind did not seem to dare to refuse her, the magpie, and blew, rushed over the fields, whistling and laughing at the frost. And if you listen carefully, you can already hear warm water bubbling and murmuring along the ravines under the snow, washing the roots of lingonberries, breaking ice on the river.

Everyone knows that the magpie is the most talkative bird in the world, and therefore the crows did not believe her - they only croaked among themselves, that, they say, the old one was lying again.

So until now, no one knows whether the magpie spoke the truth or whether she invented all this from boasting. Only one thing is known, that by evening the ice cracked, dispersed, the guys and old people pressed - and water poured into the mill flume with a noise.

The old wheel creaked - icicles fell from it - and slowly turned. The millstones gnashed, then the wheel turned faster, even faster, and suddenly the whole old mill shook, started shaking and went to knock, creak, grind grain.

Pankrat poured grain, and hot flour poured from under the millstone into sacks. The women dipped their chilled hands into it and laughed.

Ringing birch firewood was chopping in all the yards. The huts glowed from the hot stove fire. The women were kneading the tight sweet dough. And everything that was alive in the huts - guys, cats, even mice - all this was spinning around the housewives, and the housewives slapped the guys on the back with a hand white from flour so that they would not climb into the very mess and interfere.

At night, there was such a smell of warm bread in the village, with a ruddy crust, with cabbage leaves burnt to the bottom, that even the foxes crawled out of their holes, sat in the snow, trembled and whined softly, thinking how to manage to steal from people at least a piece of this wonderful bread.

Filka was dragging a loaf of fresh bread, and a very small boy, Nikolka, was holding a wooden salt shaker with coarse yellow salt. Pankrat came out on the threshold and asked:

- What kind of phenomenon? Would you bring me some bread and salt? For what such merits?

- Not really! the guys shouted. - You will be special. And this is a wounded horse. From Filka. We want to reconcile them.

- Well, - said Pankrat, - not only a person needs an apology. Now I will introduce you to the horse in kind.

- Don't be scared, Boy! Filka is not an evil person. Why offend him? Take bread, put up!

Everyone smiled and rejoiced. Only the old magpie sat on the willow and cracked angrily: she must have boasted again that she alone managed to reconcile the horse with Filka. But no one listened to her or understood her, and the magpie became more and more angry because of this and cracked like a machine gun.

The story "Warm Bread" by Paustovsky was written in 1954, when memories of the horrors of war were still alive in people's memory. This is a wonderful tale that teaches love, mercy and forgiveness.

Main characters

Filka- a gloomy, unsociable boy, in whose heart there was no kindness either to animals or to people.

Other characters

Pankrat- an old miller, a wise, practical, sensible man.

Grandmother- Filka's own grandmother, a kind and sensitive woman.

When a cavalry detachment passed near the village of Berezhki, a German shell exploded, and a fragment "wounded a black horse in the leg." The detachment commander had no choice but to leave him in the village and continue on his way.

The wounded horse was taken by the old miller Pankrat, whom the local children considered a sorcerer. The old man managed to get out of the horse, which became his faithful assistant and "patiently drove clay, manure and poles - helped Pankrat repair the dam."

It was hard for the miller to feed the horse, and soon he began to walk around the village, begging for food from the locals. Many felt sorry for the smart animal that had suffered in the war, and fed him with what they could.

In Berezhki lived with his grandmother "the boy Filka, nicknamed Well you." He was a gloomy, withdrawn guy who, on business and idle, inserted his favorite phrase into the conversation - “Come on! ', which is why they called him that.

By the beginning of winter, Pankrat managed to repair the mill. There was very little flour left in the village, and the miller was going to immediately start threshing bread.

Just at this time, a wounded horse wandered around the village in search of food. He "knocked with his muzzle on the gate to Filkin's grandmother." The boy reluctantly went out into the yard. In his hands he held a half-eaten piece of bread sprinkled with salt. The horse was about to reach for the bread, but Filka "hit the horse's mouth with a backhand" and threw the loaf into the snowdrift.

The horse neighed plaintively, a tear rolled from his eyes. Suddenly a strong wind arose, a blizzard swept up. Filka hardly reached the hut. Through the roar of the mad wind, the boy seemed to hear “a thin and short whistle - this is how a ponytail whistles when an angry horse hits its sides with it.”

The blizzard subsided only in the evening. Arriving home, Filkin's grandmother said that all the water in the village had frozen. The severe frost that hit Berezhki at night caused alarm among local residents - if the weather does not change, famine will come. Everyone is running out of flour, the water in the river has frozen, and the mill cannot work.

It was so cold in the hut that mice began to crawl out of the cellar to hide "under the stove in the straw, where there was still some warmth." Filka began to cry with fear, and the grandmother, in order to calm her grandson, began to tell him a long story.

One day, a great misfortune happened in their area - a severe frost that killed all life. And the reason for this was human malice - when an old poor man, a crippled soldier, asked a wealthy peasant for bread, he threw a stale piece on the ground. With difficulty lifting the bread from the ground, the elderly soldier noticed that it was covered with green mold and it was impossible to eat it. At the same moment, “a blizzard broke, a blizzard, the storm swirled the village, the roofs tore off,” and the greedy peasant died immediately.

Filka's grandmother is sure that this time the reason for the severe frost was an evil man who appeared in the village. The only hope is that “a bad person will correct his villainy”, and only a wise and omniscient miller can help in this.

At night, Filka, taking a quilted jacket with him, rushed to Pankrat with all his might. He honestly admitted that he offended the horse. The miller explained to the boy that he would be able to atone for his guilt before the wounded horse and people if he invented "salvation from the cold."

Filka decided to gather all the guys he knew and break the ice on the river together to make the mill work. At dawn, the guys and old people gathered, and on the river there was a “frequent knock of crowbars”. For friendly work, no one noticed how the weather changed in better side- a warm wind blew, the branches on the trees thawed, it smelled of spring.

By evening, the ice had broken, and the mill started working in full force. The inhabitants of Berezhki were very pleased - in every house there was a smell of "the smell of warm bread with a golden crust".

The next morning, Filka came to Pankrat with a whole loaf of fresh bread to feed his horse. At first, he did not want to accept a treat from the hands of the offender, but the miller persuaded him to make peace with the boy. Having eaten all the bread, the wounded horse "put his head on Filka's shoulder, sighed and closed his eyes from satiety and pleasure."

Conclusion

With his book, Konstantin Paustovsky wanted to remind readers how important it is to be kind and sensitive to someone else's misfortune, not to remain indifferent and show mercy.

After reading a brief retelling of "Warm Bread", we recommend that you read Paustovsky's story in the full version.

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