The story of the nose doll read the full content. Doll (Akimych) - Nosov E

Now I rarely go to those places: it skidded, dragged, flooded, filled with sand the last Seim pools.

They say the rivers used to be deeper...

Why go so far into history? In a not so distant time, I liked to visit near Lipino, about twenty-five versts from home. Just right, opposite the ancient headless mound, over which kites always soared on hot days, there was one treasured pit. In this place, the river, resting against the indestructible Devonian clay, makes a turn with such a temper that it begins to twist the entire whirlpool, creating back - a circular current. They circle here for hours, the chips, algae, bottles sticking up their necks, fragments of the ubiquitous foam plastic cannot break out into free water, and scary funnels rumble, gurgle and sob day and night, which even geese avoid. Well, at night, at the pool, it’s not at all comfortable when the washed-out shore suddenly collapses, heavily, or slashes the water with a flat tail, like a board, a seasoned catfish that has risen from a pit.

Somehow I found the carrier Akimych near his hut, engaged in a secret fishing business. Adjusting his glasses on his nose, he concentratedly ripped out the golden cord from the cut of the drive belt - he was plotting a line. And everyone lamented: he did not have suitable hooks.

I rummaged through my supplies, selected the most dashing ones, bent from blued two-millimeter wire, which I had once purchased just like that, for exotic purposes, and poured them into Akimychev's cap. He took one with naughty, hardened fingers, turned it in front of his glasses and mockingly looked at me, narrowing one eye:

And I thought it really was a hook. I'll have to order from the blacksmith. And take these out of laughter.

I don’t know if Akimych caught the owner of the Lipina Pit, because later different reasons I had a break, I did not go to those places. Only a few years later I finally had a chance to visit my old sizhi.

I went and did not recognize the river.

The channel narrowed, became infested, the clean sands on the bends were covered with cocklebur and hard butterbur, many unfamiliar shoals and spits appeared. There were no more deep dredges of rapids, where cast, bronzed ides used to drill into the river surface at the evening dawn. It used to be that you were preparing tackle for wiring, but your fingers couldn’t get into the ring in any way - such a gambling chill is seized at the sight of steep, silently diverging circles ... Now all this yazovoe freedom bristled with a bunch and arrowhead spikes, and everywhere where it is still free from herbs , rushing black bottom mud, fertilized from an excess of fertilizer carried by rain from the fields.

"Well," I think, "nothing happened to Lipina Pit. What can happen to such an abyss!" I go up and can’t believe my eyes: where it used to be terribly spinning and whirling, a dirty gray little thing, like a big dead fish, stuck out with a hump, and on that little thing - an old gander. He stood so casually, on one paw, preening, with his beak expelling fleas from under his protruding wing. And it is unaware to the foolish one that until recently there were six or seven meters of black seething depth under him, which he himself, leading the brood, timidly swam to the side.

Looking at the overgrown river, barely oozing with subdued water, Akimych sadly waved it off:

And don't even unwind your rods! Dont spoil spirit. Business is gone, Ivanych, it's gone!

Soon Akimych himself was gone from the Seimas, his old river transport got rid of him ...

On the shore, in a thatched hut, I have more than once had occasion to while away summer nights. Then it turned out that Akimych and I, it turns out, fought in the same Gorbatov’s third army, participated in the “Bagration”, liquidated the Bobruisk and then the Minsk boilers together, took the same Belarusian and Polish cities. And even dropped out of the war in the same month. True, we got different hospitals: I ended up in Serpukhov, and he - in Uglich.

Akimych was wounded bloodlessly, but severely: a long-range landmine filled up the trench and shell-shocked him so much that even now, decades later, having become agitated, he suddenly lost the power of speech, his tongue seemed to be tightly wedged, and Akimych, turning pale, fell silent, painfully, staring at his interlocutor and helplessly stretching his lips with a tube. This went on for several minutes, after which he sighed deeply, noisily, raising his sharp, thin shoulders, and cold sweat showered his face, exhausted by dumbness and petrification. "Are you dead?" - I shrank badly when I matured on the charred remains of Akimychev's hut.

An - no! Last autumn, I was walking through the village, past the brand new white-brick school, which so well occupied the green hill above the Seim, I looked. and towards - Akimych! Toropko hums with kirzachs, a cap, a padded jacket, a shovel on his shoulder.

Hello, dear friend! I threw out my hands. blocking his path. Akimych, pale, with painfully stiff lips, did not seem to recognize me at all. It can be seen that something pissed him off and, as always in such cases, tightly jammed.

Where did you disappear to?! Not visible on the river. Akimych pursed his lips into a tube, trying to say something.

I look, your hut was burned.

Instead of answering, he turned his index finger v of his temple, saying that it doesn’t take much mind.

So where are you now, I don't understand?

Still not recovering, Akimych nodded his head in the direction of the school.

It's clear now. Watching, gardening. Where's the shovel?

Ah? - escaped from him, and he annoyedly shoved his shoulder, trying to go.

We walked past the school fence along a road lined with old willows already gilded in autumn. In nature it was still sunny, warm and even festive, as sometimes happens at the beginning of a fine October, when the last little stars of chicory are blooming and black-velvet bumblebees are still rummaging through the belated hats of the tartar. And the air is already sharp and strong, and the distances are clear and open to infinity.

Directly from the school fence, or rather, from the road passing by it, began a river meadow, still green in summer, with white patches of yarrow, goose feathers and some meadow mushrooms. And only near the roadside willows was the meadow strewn with fallen leaves, narrow and long, similar to our Seim top fish. And from behind the fence there was a breath of damp, dug-up earth and intoxicating apple pretzel. Somewhere there, behind the young apple trees, it must be on sports ground, biting slaps were heard on volleyball, sometimes accompanied by bursts of triumphant, approving childish cries, and these young voices under the cloudless rural afternoon also created a feeling of festivity and joy of being.

All this time Akimych walked ahead of me silently and swiftly, only when we passed the corner of the fence did he stop and stifledly let out:

Here, look...

A doll was lying in a dirty roadside ditch. She lay on her back with her arms and legs outstretched. Big and still pretty face, with a slight, barely marked smile on her swollen, childlike lips. But the blond silky hair on his head was burned in places, his eyes were gouged out, and a hole gaped in place of his nose. burnt, must have been a cigarette. Someone tore off her dress, and pulled off her blue panties to the very shoes, and the place that was previously covered by them. was also covered in cigarettes.

Whose job is this?

Who knows ... - Akimych did not answer right away, still looking contritely at the doll, over which someone had so cynically and cruelly mocked. - It's hard to think of anyone these days. Many have become accustomed to evil and do not see how evil they themselves are doing. And from them the children are recruited. With a doll, this is not the first time. I go to the district and to the region and I see: here and there - whether under the fence, in the garbage heap - discarded dolls are lying around. Who are completely straight, in a dress, with a bow in their hair, and sometimes - without a head or: without both legs ... So it’s not good for me to see this! My heart is already in a lump: it will shrink ... Maybe this has happened to me since the war. For life; I've seen enough human flesh ... It seems that you understand: a doll. Yes, it's a human form. They will make another one so that you cannot distinguish it from a living child. And cry like a human. And when this likeness is lying torn to pieces by the road, I cannot see. It hits me all over. And people go by - each on his own business - and nothing ... Couples pass by, holding hands, talking about love, dreaming about children. They bring babies in strollers - they won’t raise an eyebrow. Kids run around - get used to such sacrilege. Here too: how many disciples passed by! In the morning - to school, in the evening - from school. And most importantly - teachers: they, too, pass by. Here's what I don't understand. How so?! What will you teach, what beauty, what kindness, if you are blind, your soul is deaf!... Eh!...

Akimych suddenly turned pale, his face tightened with that terrible rigidity of his, and his lips stretched out by themselves like a tube, as if something unspoken was stuck and frozen in them.

I already knew that Akimych was "jammed" again and that he would not speak soon now.

He stooped, bent over the ditch and there, on a wasteland, around the corner of the school fence, near a large burdock with leaves like elephant ears, he began to dig a hole, having previously outlined its oblong contours with a shovel. The doll was no more than a meter tall, but Akimych dug diligently and deeply, like a real grave, burrowing to the very waist. Having leveled the wall, he still silently and detachedly went to the haystack in the pasture, brought an armful of hay and lined the bottom of the pit with it. Then he straightened the doll's panties, folded its arms along the body and lowered it into the damp depth of the pit. From above he covered it with the remnants of hay and only after that he again took up the shovel.

And suddenly he sighed noisily, as if emerging from some depth, and said with pain:

Don't bury everything...

© Nosov E. I., heir, 2015

© Design. Eksmo Publishing LLC, 2015

Kingfisher

Every angler has a favorite spot on the river. Here he builds a bait for himself. He hammers stakes into the bottom of the river near the shore in a semicircle, braids them with a vine, and fills the void inside with earth. It turns out something like a small peninsula. Especially when the fisherman overlays the bait with green turf, and the clogged stakes start up young shoots.

Immediately, three or four steps away, a shelter from the rain is being built on the shore - a hut or a dugout. Others arrange for themselves a dwelling with bunks, a small window, with a kerosene lantern under the ceiling. This is where anglers spend their holidays.

This summer I did not build baits for myself, but used the old, well-settled one, which a friend had given me for the duration of my vacation. We spent the night fishing together. And the next morning my friend began to get ready for the train. Packing his backpack, he gave me the last instructions:

- Don't forget to feed. If you don't feed the fish, it will leave. That's why they call it a bait because fish are baited to it. At dawn, add a squeeze. I have it in a bag above the bunk. You can find kerosene for the lantern in the cellar behind the hut. I took the milk from the miller. Here's the key to the boat. Well, everything seems to be. No tail, no scales!

He threw his rucksack over his shoulders, straightened his cap, which had been knocked down by the strap, and suddenly took my sleeve:

– Yes, I almost forgot. A kingfisher lives next door. His nest is in a cliff, over there under that bush. So you, tovo ... Do not offend. While I was fishing, got used to me. He became so bold that he began to sit on the bait. They lived together. Yes, and you yourself understand: it’s boring here alone. And he will be your faithful partner in fishing. We have been dating him for the third season already.

I warmly shook hands with my comrade and promised to continue my friendship with the kingfisher.

“And what is he like, a kingfisher? I thought when my friend was already far away. How will I recognize him? I once read about this bird, but I didn’t remember the description, and I didn’t have to see it alive. I didn’t think to ask a friend how she looks.

But soon she herself showed up. I was sitting at the hut. The morning bite is over. The floats were motionless white among the dark green lily pads. Sometimes the erupted mallow touched the floats, they trembled, made me alert. But soon I realized what was the matter, and completely stopped watching the fishing rods. A sultry afternoon was approaching - a time of rest for both fish and anglers.

Suddenly, a large bright butterfly flashed over the coastal thickets of sedge, frequently flapping its wings. At the same instant, the butterfly landed on my last rod, folded its wings and turned out to be ... a bird. The thin tip of the rod swayed under her, tossing the bird up and down, causing it to quiver its wings, then spread its tail. And exactly the same bird, reflected in the water, then flew towards, then again fell into the blue of the overturned sky.

I hid and began to look at the stranger. She was amazingly beautiful.

An olive-orange breast, dark, light-spotted wings, and a bright, sky-colored back, so bright that during the flight it shone in exactly the same way as an emerald-blue satin shimmers in the bends of the sun. No wonder I mistook the bird for an outlandish butterfly.

But the magnificent outfit did not go to her face. There was something mournful, sad in her appearance. Here the rod has stopped swinging. The bird froze on it in a motionless lump. She chilly pulled her head into her shoulders and lowered her long beak on her goiter. A short tail, barely protruding from under the wings, also gave her a kind of forlorn appearance. No matter how much I watched her, she never moved, did not make a single sound. And she looked and looked at the dark waters of the river flowing under her. It seemed that she dropped something to the bottom and now, saddened, she flies over the river and looks for her loss.

And I began to develop a fairy tale about a beautiful princess. About how the evil Baba Yaga bewitched her and turned her into a kingfisher bird. The clothes on the bird remained royal: from gold brocade and blue satin. And the princess-bird is sad because the Baba Yaga threw a silver key into the river, with which a forged chest is unlocked. In the chest at the very bottom is a magic word. Having mastered this word, the princess-bird will again become a princess-girl. So she flies over the river, sad and mournful, looking for and can not find the cherished key.

She sat, my princess sat on a fishing rod, squeaked thinly, as if she sobbed, and flew along the coast, often flapping her wings.

I really liked the bird. To offend such a hand is not raised. Not in vain, it turns out, my friend warned me.

The kingfisher came every day. He, apparently, did not notice that a new owner had appeared at the halt. And what did he have to do with us? We don’t touch, we don’t scare - and thanks for that. And I'm really used to it. Sometimes, for some reason, he won’t visit, and you already miss him. On a deserted river, when you live so tightly, every living being is glad.

Somehow my birdie flew in to bait, as before, sat on the bait and began to think her thoughts bitter. Yes, suddenly how it thumps into the water! Only spray flew in all directions. I even flinched in surprise. And she immediately took off, sparkling with something silver in her beak. As if this was the very key that she had been looking for for so long.

But it turned out that my story did not end there. The kingfisher flew and flew, and was still just as silent and sad. Occasionally, he dived into the water, but instead of the treasured key, small fish came across. He took them to his deep dungeon hole dug in the cliff.

The end of my vacation was approaching. In the mornings, merry shore swallows no longer flew over the river. They have already left their native river and set off on a long and difficult journey.

I was sitting by the hut, basking in the sun after the acrid morning mist. Suddenly, a shadow passed over my legs. I looked up and saw a hawk. The predator swiftly rushed to the river, pressing its strong wings to its sides. At the same moment a kingfisher fluttered its wings over the reeds.

“Well, why are you flying, fool!” - it broke out of me. “You can’t escape from such a robber on wings. Hide quickly in the bushes!

I put my fingers in my mouth and whistled as loud as I could. But, carried away by the pursuit, the hawk paid no attention to me. The prey was too sure to give up the chase. The hawk has already extended its ankle-legged legs forward, spread its tail like a fan in order to slow down the rapid expansion and not miss ... The evil sorceress sent death to my princess in the guise of a feathered robber. This is the tragic end of my fairy tale.

I saw the clawed paws of a predator flash in the air in a lightning strike. But just a second earlier, the kingfisher plunged into the water like a blue arrow. Circular waves came in on the calm late afternoon water, surprising the fooled hawk.

I was going home. He took the boat to the mill for supervision, put things in a shoulder bag, rolled up fishing rods. And instead of the one on which the kingfisher liked to sit, he stuck a long branch of the vine. In the evening, as if nothing had happened, my sad princess flew in and trustfully sat down on a twig.

“But I’m going home,” I said aloud, tying my backpack. - I'm going to the city to work. What will you do alone? Look, don't get caught by the hawk again. Your orange and blue feathers will fly over the river. And no one will know about it.

The kingfisher, ruffled, sat motionless on a vine. Against the backdrop of a blazing sunset, the lonely figure of a bird clearly loomed. She seemed to be listening carefully to my words.

- Well, goodbye! ..

I took off my cap, waved to my princess and wished with all my heart to find the silver key.

living flame

Aunt Olya looked into my room, again caught me behind the papers, and, raising her voice, said commandingly:

- Will write something! Go get some air, help cut the flower bed. - Aunt Olya took out a birch bark box from the closet. While I gladly kneaded my back, raking the damp earth with a rake, she sat down on a mound and poured sachets and bundles of flower seeds onto her knees and sorted them into varieties.

“Olga Petrovna, what is it,” I remark, “do you not sow poppies in flowerbeds?”

- Well, what color is the poppy! she answered confidently. - It's a vegetable. It is sown in the beds along with onions and cucumbers.

- What do you! I laughed. - In some old song it is sung:

And her forehead, like marble, is white,
And the cheeks are burning, as if the color of poppies.

“It only blooms for two days,” Olga Petrovna persisted. - For a flower bed, this does not fit in any way, puffed - and immediately burned out. And then this very mallet sticks out all summer, only spoils the view.

But all the same, I secretly poured a pinch of poppy into the very middle of the flower bed. She turned green after a few days.

Did you sow poppies? - Aunt Olya approached me. - Oh, you are such a mischievous! So be it, I left the top three, I felt sorry for you. The rest were all weeded out.

Unexpectedly, I left on business and returned only two weeks later. After a hot, tiring road, it was nice to enter Aunt Olya's quiet old house. The freshly washed floor was cool. A jasmine bush growing under the window cast a lacy shadow on the desk.

- Pour kvass? she suggested, looking sympathetically at me, sweaty and tired. Alyosha was very fond of kvass. Sometimes he bottled and sealed it himself.

When I rented this room, Olga Petrovna, raising her eyes to the portrait of a young man in a flight uniform that hangs over the desk, asked:

- Doesn't it interfere?

- What do you!

This is my son Alex. And the room was his. Well, you settle down, live on health ...

Handing me a heavy copper mug with kvass, Aunt Olya said:

- And your poppies have risen, the buds have already been thrown away.

I went out to look at the flowers. The flowerbed became unrecognizable. Along the very edge was spread a rug, which, with its thick cover with flowers scattered over it, very much resembled a real carpet. Then the flower bed was girded with a ribbon of matthiols - modest night flowers that attract not by brightness, but by a gently bitter aroma, similar to the smell of vanilla. Curtains of yellow-violet pansies were full of flowers, purple-velvet hats of Parisian beauties swayed on thin legs. There were many other familiar and unfamiliar colors. And in the center of the flower bed, above all this flower diversity, my poppies rose, throwing out three tight, heavy buds towards the sun. They broke up the next day.

Aunt Olya went out to water the flower bed, but immediately returned, rattling an empty watering can.

- Well, go, look, they bloomed.

From a distance, the poppies looked like lit torches with live flames blazing merrily in the wind. A light wind swayed a little, and the sun pierced the translucent scarlet petals with light, which made the poppies either flare up with a quivering bright fire, or fill with a thick crimson. It seemed that one had only to touch - they would immediately scorch!

Poppies blinded with their mischievous, burning brightness, and next to them all these Parisian beauties, snapdragons and other flower aristocracy faded, dimmed.

Poppies burned wildly for two days. And at the end of the second day they suddenly crumbled and went out. And immediately on a lush flower bed without them it became empty. I picked up from the ground still quite fresh, in drops of dew, a petal and straightened it in my palm.

“That's all,” I said loudly, with a feeling of admiration that had not yet cooled down.

“Yes, it burned down ...” Aunt Olya sighed, as if in a living being. - And somehow I used to pay no attention to this poppy. He has a short life. But without looking back, full force lived. And it happens to people...

Aunt Olya, somehow hunched over, suddenly hurried into the house.

I have already been told about her son. Alexei died diving on his tiny "hawk" on the back of a heavy fascist bomber.

I now live on the other side of the city and occasionally visit Aunt Olya. I recently visited her again. We sat at the summer table, drank tea, shared the news. And nearby, in a flower bed, a large fire of poppies was blazing. Some crumbled, dropping petals to the ground like sparks, others only opened their fiery tongues. And from below, from the damp, full of vitality of the earth, more and more tightly rolled buds rose up to keep the living fire from going out.

Forgotten page

Summer rushed away somehow suddenly, like a frightened bird. At night the garden rustled alarmingly, an old hollow bird-cherry tree creaked under the window.

The slanting heavy rain whipped against the windows, drummed muffledly on the roof, and the drainpipe gurgled and choked. Dawn reluctantly seeped through the gray, bloodless sky. Bird cherry almost completely flew around during the night and thickly littered the veranda with leaves.

Aunt Olya cut the last dahlias in the garden. Fingering the wet flowers, breathing with damp freshness, she said:

- It's autumn.

And it was strange to see these flowers in the twilight of a room with tear-stained windows.

I hoped that the suddenly creeping bad weather would not linger long. The cold is, in fact, too early. After all, Indian summer is still ahead - one or two weeks of quiet sunny days with silver flying cobwebs, with the aroma of late antonovka and penultimate mushrooms.

But the weather didn't improve. The rains turned into winds. And endless strings of clouds crawled and rolled. The garden slowly withered, crumbled, and did not blaze with bright autumn colors.

The day somehow imperceptibly melted behind the bad weather. Already at four o'clock Aunt Olya was lighting the lamp. Wrapped up in a goat shawl, she brought in the samovar, and we, having nothing to do, began to drink tea for a long time. Then she chopped cabbage for pickling, and I sat down to work or, if something interesting came across, I read aloud.

“But they haven’t stocked up on fungi these days,” said Aunt Olya. - Come on, now they are completely gone. Is it just again ...

And sure enough, the last week of October was going on, still just as gloomy and joyless. Somewhere the golden Indian summer passed by. There was no longer any hope for warmer days. Wait for it, it will start. What kind of mushrooms now!

And the next day I woke up from the feeling of some kind of holiday in myself. I opened my eyes and gasped in amazement. The small, previously gloomy room was full of joyful light. On the windowsill, pierced by the sun's rays, a geranium was young and freshly green.

I looked out the window. The roof of the shed was silver with frost. The white sparkling coating quickly thawed, and cheerful, lively drops fell from the eaves. Through the thin netting of the bare branches of the bird-cherry, the cleanly washed sky was serenely blue.

I couldn't wait to get out of the house as soon as possible. I asked Aunt Olya for a small box of mushrooms, slung a double-barreled shotgun over my shoulder and walked into the forest.

The last time I was in the forest, when it was still quite green, full of careless bird chatter. And now he is all somehow quiet and stern. The winds have bared the trees, scattered the foliage far around, and the forest stands strangely empty and transparent.

Only the oak, which stood alone at the very edge of the forest, did not shed its foliage. She only turned brown, curled up, scorched by the breath of autumn. The oak stood like an epic warrior, stern and mighty. Lightning had once struck him, drained the peak, and now a broken branch stuck out above his heavy, bronze-forged crown, like a formidable weapon raised for a new fight.

I went deep into the forest, cut out a stick with a fork on the end and began to look for mushroom places.

Finding mushrooms in a motley mosaic of fallen leaves is not an easy task. And are they available at such a late hour? I wandered for a long time through the echoing, deserted forest, tedding under the bushes with a spear, joyfully stretching out my hand to a reddish mushroom cap that appeared, but it immediately mysteriously disappeared, and instead of it only aspen leaves turned red. At the bottom of my box rolled only three or four late russula with dark purple wide-brimmed hats.

Only towards noon did I come across an old felling, overgrown with grasses and tree growth, among which stumps blackened here and there. On one of them, I found a cheerful family of red, thin-legged mushrooms. They crowded between two knotty rhizomes, just like mischievous children who ran out to bask on a mound. I carefully cut them all at once, without separating them, and put them in a container. Then he found another such happy stump, more, and soon regretted that he had not taken with him a basket more spacious. Well, and this is a good gift for my kind old lady. Something will be glad!

I sat down on a stump, took off my cap, exposing my head to the warmth and light, and stuffed my pipe. What a glorious day it has been! Warmth, silence. And you would not think that shaggy gray clouds crawled across this blue sky with highly floating feathers of transparent clouds just yesterday. Just like in summer.

Out from the birch stump flew a butterfly, dark cherry, with a light border on its wings. This is a mourning room. She crawled out of her hiding place into the sun and basked in the warm cut of a tree. And now, having warmed up, awkwardly, galloping flight fluttered over the clearing. And it was not at all surprising to hear how, somewhere in the grass, a grasshopper began to tune his violin.

This is how it happens in nature: October is already running out - a deaf time of rain - and winter lurks somewhere nearby - and suddenly, on the border of endless autumn rains and a winter blizzard, such a bright, festive day is lost! As if summer, hastily flying away, accidentally dropped one of its bright pages. And this whole clearing, bordered by a silent, naked forest, looks quite like summer. There is so much greenery here! And there are even flowers. I bent down and pulled out of the grass a harsh tassel of oregano, studded with pale purple whisks.

And then, returning home, I collected several more different flowers and knitted a small bouquet of them. There were bright blue stars of wild chicory, and white crosses of yarutka, and even a delicate branch of field violet - jewels dropped by the flown away summer.

Screw

Through the April fields and copses, touched by the first spring greenery, high-voltage support masts went straight to the horizon.

Nearby, gradually turning to the right, Shurup walked along the country road - a freckled, snub-nosed boy, the kind that vocational schools and all kinds of schools of the FZO produce in batches. A winter uniform pea coat is wide open, in his hand is an old cap with earflaps lined with a mysterious bluish-blue beast. On Shurup's feet are ordinary work boots with iron rivets on the sides. It is, of course, difficult to tap dance in such ones, but stomping along an unkempt country road is even very deft, especially if you take a good step.

Screw was carrying a hat with earflaps behind one ear, as boys wear a shot crow, and slapped it on the trouser leg with every step. His blond forelock had long since dried up in the breeze and now bristled on his head without any order.

The day from the very morning is sunny, cheerful. From hour to hour, the brown meadows and roadsides of yesterday are filled with greenery, the light park trembles over the black, plowed earth, and all over the sky - somewhere under the white strokes of the clouds, then quite close, just above the ear - the larks ring, fill up, and if you look up, you will immediately close your eyes from the unrestrained stream of rays and you will not see any lark, as if it is not they who are singing, but the sky itself is ringing from the spring warmth and light.

Screw is walking, waving his hat, giving his shoe everything that can be kicked - a dry clod of earth or an old tin can, stops on the footbridges across the rivers, watches how the little ones are chasing spit, good mood at Shurup!

A week before the May holidays, their high-voltage team finished pulling the line in their section, and Frolov, the head of the section, let Screw go home for five whole days. “Here you are,” he says, “two days in May, one day off and two days from me personally. For getting into the business."

True, Screw is listed in the team not even as an installer, but only as a trainee. But this is by order, and if so, then there is no difference. Rain or some kind of flurry there, it does not recognize discharges - it sneezes everyone indiscriminately. Yes, and slept in the same trailer, and ate from the same boiler. What can be the conversation? And if you show his hands, then at Screw they are like workers: not with dropsy, which schoolchildren from the first garden bed have, but with real calluses, covered with yellow, horny skin, so hard that you can’t even prick with a fingernail. He squeezes his fingers, and immediately inside the fist one feels this callous stiffness, from which the hand is heavy, as if iron, and the hammer sits in it like a glove.

“But it turned out great! - thought Screw, economically looking at the high-voltage. “It’s even beautiful!”

All the way, Shurup felt a paper ball rest against his chest - a pack of three-ruble bills folded in half, put into the side pocket of a pea coat. This is his first pay in a month and a half of work on the line. The screw in the heat did not even count how much there was. They kept the income, some bachelors there, deducted for grubs (the products are brought directly to the line), I lent the five to the winch Vanka Shelyabov, and still there was a whole bunch. In his youth, Shurup still did not know how to keep an economic account of money, and therefore it did not matter to him how many of these very three rubles were in his pocket. It was much more important to realize that they finally exist and that he earned them with his own hands.

“I need to buy my mother a present for the holiday,” Shurup thought. - When I arrive in the city, I won’t go home right away, but first I’ll go shopping. To go home with a gift. Just what to buy? Candy box? Some more expensive. To be tied with a ribbon. Will she eat herself? He will take a little thing or two, and give the rest to Vitka. And just give it to him: he will eat everything at once, like potatoes, and cut the box with scissors. Maybe a handbag? The black one was completely worn out, the lock had already been repaired twice. Or a dress?.. Beautiful, with flowers. That will be glad! Shurup was pleased to mentally dress his mother in everything new: he imagined how his mother, excited, turning pink in her face, would try on gifts in front of a mirror, and from these mental pictures he was imbued with a feeling of honestly deserved respect for himself. “Wear it, mother, to your health,” he will say. “If I earn more, I’d rather buy.”

Current page: 1 (total book has 18 pages) [accessible reading excerpt: 12 pages]

Evgeny Nosov
Doll (compilation)

© Nosov E. I., heir, 2015

© Design. Eksmo Publishing LLC, 2015

Kingfisher

He threw his rucksack over his shoulders, straightened his cap, which had been knocked down by the strap, and suddenly took my sleeve:

I warmly shook hands with my comrade and promised to continue my friendship with the kingfisher.

I hid and began to look at the stranger. She was amazingly beautiful. An olive-orange breast, dark, light-spotted wings, and a bright, sky-colored back, so bright that during the flight it shone in exactly the same way as an emerald-blue satin shimmers in the bends of the sun. No wonder I mistook the bird for an outlandish butterfly.

She sat, my princess sat on a fishing rod, squeaked thinly, as if she sobbed, and flew along the coast, often flapping her wings.

I really liked the bird. To offend such a hand is not raised. Not in vain, it turns out, my friend warned me.

The end of my vacation was approaching. In the mornings, merry shore swallows no longer flew over the river. They have already left their native river and set off on a long and difficult journey.

“Well, why are you flying, fool!” - it broke out of me. “You can’t escape from such a robber on wings. Hide quickly in the bushes!

The kingfisher, ruffled, sat motionless on a vine. Against the backdrop of a blazing sunset, the lonely figure of a bird clearly loomed. She seemed to be listening carefully to my words.

- Well, goodbye! ..

I took off my cap, waved to my princess and wished with all my heart to find the silver key.

living flame

Aunt Olya looked into my room, again caught me behind the papers, and, raising her voice, said commandingly:

“Olga Petrovna, what is it,” I remark, “do you not sow poppies in flowerbeds?”

- Well, what color is the poppy! she answered confidently. - It's a vegetable. It is sown in the beds along with onions and cucumbers.

- What do you! I laughed. - In some old song it is sung:

And her forehead, like marble, is white,
And the cheeks are burning, as if the color of poppies.

But all the same, I secretly poured a pinch of poppy into the very middle of the flower bed. She turned green after a few days.

Did you sow poppies? - Aunt Olya approached me. - Oh, you are such a mischievous! So be it, I left the top three, I felt sorry for you. The rest were all weeded out.

- Pour kvass? she suggested, looking sympathetically at me, sweaty and tired. Alyosha was very fond of kvass. Sometimes he bottled and sealed it himself.

When I rented this room, Olga Petrovna, raising her eyes to the portrait of a young man in a flight uniform that hangs over the desk, asked:

- Doesn't it interfere?

- What do you!

This is my son Alex. And the room was his. Well, you settle down, live on health ...

Handing me a heavy copper mug with kvass, Aunt Olya said:

- And your poppies have risen, the buds have already been thrown away.

Aunt Olya went out to water the flower bed, but immediately returned, rattling an empty watering can.

- Well, go, look, they bloomed.

Poppies blinded with their mischievous, burning brightness, and next to them all these Parisian beauties, snapdragons and other flower aristocracy faded, dimmed.

“That's all,” I said loudly, with a feeling of admiration that had not yet cooled down.

“Yes, it burned down ...” Aunt Olya sighed, as if in a living being. - And somehow I used to pay no attention to this poppy. He has a short life. But without looking back, lived to the fullest. And it happens to people...

Aunt Olya, somehow hunched over, suddenly hurried into the house.

I have already been told about her son. Alexei died diving on his tiny "hawk" on the back of a heavy fascist bomber.

Forgotten page

Summer rushed away somehow suddenly, like a frightened bird. At night the garden rustled alarmingly, an old hollow bird-cherry tree creaked under the window.

Aunt Olya cut the last dahlias in the garden. Fingering the wet flowers, breathing with damp freshness, she said:

- It's autumn.

And it was strange to see these flowers in the twilight of a room with tear-stained windows.

But the weather didn't improve. The rains turned into winds. And endless strings of clouds crawled and rolled. The garden slowly withered, crumbled, and did not blaze with bright autumn colors.

“But they haven’t stocked up on fungi these days,” said Aunt Olya. - Come on, now they are completely gone. Is it just again ...

I couldn't wait to get out of the house as soon as possible. I asked Aunt Olya for a small box of mushrooms, slung a double-barreled shotgun over my shoulder and walked into the forest.

I went deep into the forest, cut out a stick with a fork on the end and began to look for mushroom places.

Screw

Through the April fields and copses, touched by the first spring greenery, high-voltage support masts went straight to the horizon.

Screw is walking, waving his hat, giving his shoe everything that can be kicked up - a dry clod of earth or an old tin can, stopping on the footbridge across the rivers, watching how the little ones are chasing spit, Screw is in a good mood!

“But it turned out great! - thought Screw, economically looking at the high-voltage. “It’s even beautiful!”

Shurup arrived at the station long before the train. Old Zasek turned out to be a trifling, unprepossessing station: a few freight cars in a dead end, two or three squat warehouses with pitch-stained roofs, some logs under a slope. But the train stopped here for some reason. He did not stand for long, no more than two minutes, it seemed, only to give the locomotive a sip before the steep derailment. fresh air into his smoky lungs.

Shurup bought a ticket, read the timetable and all sorts of posters, and hung around in the buffet with interest, asking the price of different food laid out on plates. He chose a sandwich with dark, dry sausage pieces, bent like copper bits, then, after thinking, he asked me to draw a mug of beer - after all, from the pay!

Right behind Staraya Zaseka there is a liquid oak forest. It was forty minutes before the train. After sitting on the platform in the sun, Screw went to the forest. The grove stood high and bright, in a strong infusion of thawed earth and clear sunny silence. Loudly, stunned from the heat and light, from the blue of the sky and its own existence, the Kuzya tit chirped. The screw walked along the curly oak leaves, teased the kuzya with a cunning whistle through a protruding lip, picked a young birch tree at the butt with a knife, and, leaning against the trunk, patiently waited for the oncoming drop in the undercut to lick it off with his tongue. Then he looked at his feet and was joyfully surprised: the whole glade was strewn with snowdrops - blue sparkles on a brown carpet of last year's leaves.

Crawling on his knees, Shurup suddenly heard a locomotive whistle: passenger train approached Staraya Zaseka. Already on the run to the station, Shurup realized that he would not make it in time, and, turning sharply, ran to the exit arrow. As soon as he rolled down the slope of a deep recess, long green carriages floated past.

The screw ran along the train. Heavy work shoes were heavily bogged down in the shell rock. With his right hand, he managed to grab the handrail of the last, twelfth, car, from open door whom the conductor shouted something to him. He ran with all his might next to the step, not knowing what to do with the snowdrops, which prevented him from grabbing the car with both hands. The conductor painfully pounded her arm with folded flags, but Screw did not let go of the handrail. He threw the bouquet at the door, jumped up and, bending over the steering wheel, hung on the footboard. The guide's hand grabbed the collar of Shurupov's pea jacket, and he flew on all fours into the vestibule.

- Where are you, the damned one, taking you? - The conductor in her hearts gave Screw a slap on the back of the head.

Screw got to his feet. Sweat beaded the sparse fluff on his upper lip. He took off his hat and wiped his face with it. Steamy hair came out of the hat.

“My heart has already gone cold ...” the conductor took a breath, a fat elderly aunt, with difficulty covered in a black official dress. “Look: where have you been?

Screw looked at the boots. They were plastered with viscous forest mud.

- Spring! - Shurup smiled, catching the gentle notes in the grumbling of the conductor.

- That's it - spring ... I won't let you into the car with such legs.

- I'll stay here.

- Wait, I'll take out the broom.

The guide left, and Shurup, squatting down, began to pick flowers. With unruly fingers, still trembling from the echoing tremors of his heart, he picked up tender greenish stems with blue bells from the floor and put them in a hat.

The conductor leaned out of the door and threw a broom to Screw.

- Did you hurt your hand with flags?

Brush right hand dully whined, but Screw did not confess.

- It was necessary with a foot, a heel. I would have jumped right off. With you, we’ll break it, it’s impossible otherwise. How long to sin! Well, show me the flowers. I forgot what they are, snowdrops.

She put her chubby red hand into Shurupov's earflaps and carefully, like a newborn downy chicken, scooped out and placed a handful of snowdrops in her palm.

- Look what you are! Blue-eyed ... They smell like forest! - the old conductor was delighted like a girl. - Why are you putting them in a hat? Come on, let's have a glass.

Screw went into the car, chose a place for himself at a free table in the aisle, put down a glass of snowdrops, and looked around. After the fresh forest air, it was as hot in the carriage as in a bathhouse. Through the double, badly wiped panes, the furious April sun was beating point-blank. A motionless, dusty column of light passed through the compartment, sharply highlighting the multi-layered clumsy ocher of the shelves. In this closeness, like a bumblebee entangled in a web, the loudspeaker of the train radio hummed.

Screw took off his pea coat, stuffed his hat into the sleeve and attached the clothes on a hook under the upper side shelf, on which, curled up, some guy in a black overall was sleeping, probably also from their brother of the fazeushniks. At a table by the opposite window, under heavy, sucky snoring coming from the top shelf, two women, an old one and a younger one, were having a bite to eat. The sleeping man was lying on his back, pulling a sheepskin coat lined with cloth over his head, from under which, hanging over the aisle, two bare fleshy feet protruded.

The old woman, who was sitting on the right side of the table, cut a herring on oiled newspaper, put the pieces in her mouth, and, running her tongue over her empty, toothless mouth, swallowed with a gurgle, stretching out her thin, sinewy neck like a chicken. Despite the stuffiness, she sat in a warm, old-fashioned half-sack and only pushed her shawl over her shoulders, leaving a white cotton handkerchief on her head, tied under a sharply protruding chin.

On the other side of the table, at a glass of tea steaming lazily in the sun, sat a woman in a black shawl, low and tight around her broad forehead. In the black frame of the handkerchief, a large, immovable face was distinctly yellow, densely mottled with rowans, which did not allow any folds or wrinkles to appear, and therefore the face seemed stone-dead, as if carved from porous, weathered sandstone.

As soon as Shurup settled down, the old woman, who was eating herring, asked him to throw a linen bag, which lay at her feet under the table, onto the topmost shelf.

- He is not a hindrance to me, my dear, but he can interfere with someone. Disorder, they say.

- Garlic, right? screwed Screw with his nose, rolling a heavy sack onto a shelf, not like an old woman.

- Garlic, dear, garlic. Our breadwinner. If not for garlic - at least go around the world. With us, it is not visible among other vegetables. And there are places where it is sweeter than honey-sugar. I'll bring it - thank you.

- It's who you run into! the pock-marked woman said in an unexpectedly rough, masculine voice.

“It happens, mother Malanya,” the old woman nodded. - Some take - praises, and another does not take and looks like a wolf. And yes, it will taunt. And he won’t realize that I’m doing him good. For every ailment, garlic is the first remedy. Is it good for me, old, to trudge so far, if it were not for their own good? Sometimes I get so ill, I get so ill on the road that, just look, I will give my soul to God on a foreign side. I'm going! Are you bringing flowers to your young lady? the old woman asked.

“Mothers,” said Screw.

- Mothers? - the old woman was touched. - Ah, affectionate, ah, cordial! You remember, therefore, mother, you read. Yes, you, killer whale, would also cut willows to these flowers. Today is Palm Sunday.

“We have our own holiday in two days,” said Screw.

- So after all, the killer whale, invented. And this is real. Celebrated from time immemorial.

– How is it fictional? Screw looked condescendingly at the old woman. - By the First of May, people exceed their plan, they are given bonuses, they walk for two whole days. How is it fictional? You, grandma, bent something. This is your fictional...

- Don't be angry, kasatik. You, the young, anyhow take a walk. Here you are celebrating indiscriminately. Wherever it's noisier, that's where you go. And what about that holiday? One hassle. No purification of the soul. And Palm Sunday is a great holiday. Our path to Jesus Christ was lined with willow. So I say to that: I would cut off the willow and take my mother to the glory of God.

- I figured it out too! - the pockmarked one said. “Today, willows are only cut into brooms. People have forgotten about God. All have forgotten.

- On the broom, mother Malanya! The old woman nodded in agreement. - Oh, and on the broom! And even then to say: there is nothing to assemble a broom from. How much before the willow was! Sometimes, a holiday comes up - everyone goes to break. Both small and old. There are so many people in Russia, and everyone needs it. And she, the willow, not only is not translated, but grows even more. Therefore, it is consumed for a holy cause. You go out to the pasture about this time, and it boils with a boil - fluffy, honey. And none, I look, there is no willow, all dried up.

“That’s why it dried up,” the pockmarked woman resonated, sipping hard, motionless lips from the glass, “because, I say, it dried up, because the earth is saturated with sin.

“It can’t be, therefore, God’s vine can grow in such a land,” the old woman agreed.

- Here they are! Shurup chuckled.

All this talk was for him an obvious absurdity.

- Yes, this vine of yours is at least a dime a dozen! he said passionately. - We were pulling the line in Staraya Zaseka, so we had to uproot it with a bulldozer: there was nowhere to step.

But this objection of Shurup was not taken seriously, and, waving his hand, he began to look out the window.

“And as for the land, it’s you, mother Malanya, you speak the truth,” said the old woman. - Take the garlic: useless gone. Small and ugly. I dig last summer, and one head has teeth in it! Directly poured cookie! There is something wrong with the earth.

Topic: “People and dolls based on the story of E. I. Nosov “Doll”.

Goals:

educational:

to acquaint students with the work of the writer, to reveal the ideological artistic features the story of E. I. Nosov "Doll";

find out the moral meaning of E. Nosov's story "Doll";

show the writer's protest against indifference, indifference to the world around him;

developing:

be able to independently draw conclusions about the author's position; compare episodes, select quotation material, argue your point of view;

educational:

to form an understanding of actions, motives of people's behavior;

instill in students a sense of compassion, a protest against selfishness, indifference and evil modern life; respect for nature.

Healthy environment:

observance of hygienic conditions (cleanliness of the office, airing before lessons, lighting of the office, cleanliness of the board).

The teacher's control over the posture of students during the lesson.

Equipment. Presentation (Appendix No. 1). Workbook. Computer.

Multimedia projector.

During the classes.

2 slide.

Today at the lesson we will get acquainted with the work of Evgeny Ivanovich Nosov.

E. I. Nosov, a native of Kursk, a man who went through the war, survived the wound and other troubles of the war years, forever retained in his soul openness and sympathy for those in trouble.

1. Task : read the textbook article (pp. 168 - 170), find the answer,what feeds "writing inspiration" and what is the "invariant theme" of the writer?

Student responses.

"A spacious meadow ..., a mysterious forest ..., locomotive smoke beyond the forest, beckoning me on the road - then it turned out to be literature ... ".

“My constant theme is still life common man, its moral origins, attitude to the earth, to nature and to all modern life.

3 slide.

2. What have you learned about writers?

Correspondent.

Front-line soldier.

An avid fisherman.

Campfire lover.

Teacher.

Nosov won recognition from readers“First of all, the ability to talk about what he saw, heard, experienced. And not just to tell, but to show visibly, convexly, brightly, picturesquely ... ".

4 slide.

Vocabulary work, identification of incomprehensible words. (Working with obsolete words).

Butterbur is a perennial herbaceous medicinal plant.
Drill - drill.
Rapid - an accelerated current with whirlpools.
Whirlpool - form rotary motion water.
Burnished (wire) - protect from rusting.
To be silly - to scoff.
To hum is to make a hollow sound.
Devonian (clay) is the third period of the Paleozoic era.
Bottom (mud) - located at the bottom.
Cocklebur is a genus of annual herbs.
Stubborn (fingers) - stiff.
Kuga is a marsh plant (reed).
Melyak is an accumulation of pollution on a river.
Crossing - fishing tackle with hooks.
Sizh - a hut on the ice.
A land mine is an explosive charge.

5 slide.

3. Creation of a problem situation.

How do you understand the topic of the lesson: "People and dolls."

I'm listening to the guys. We summarize the statements.

People are opposed to dolls in terms of moral values: respect,

compassion, mercy - heartlessness, spiritual deafness, callousness.

A cry for help, heartache, indignation at the indifference of people who destroy everything that surrounds them - this is the leitmotif of the story that we have to read, experience and discuss.

Critic V. Chalmaev emphasizes: “... for Nosov, the most daring ideas about beauty are in modern man, nature, in native history ... ".

6 slide.

Yevgeny Nosov loves his native nature. There are many landscape sketches in the story.

4. For what purpose does the writer create these paintings? Give examples from the text.

Conclusions .

On the one hand, the author shows the triumph of nature, emphasizing the greatness of Russia's nature.“We walked past the school fence along a road lined with old willows, already covered in autumn gilding. In nature it was still sunny, warm and even festive….» On the other hand, the consequences of reckless human activity towards the environment. (“There was a doll lying in a dirty roadside ditch…”).

5. What is the name of such a technique in literature?

Contrast as the main artistic technique. (antithesis).

7 slide.

6. How do you see the characters in the story? Tell about them.

The narrator (the narration is from 1 person) and the carrier Akimych.Loved fishing and nature. They fought in Gorbatov's third army. Participated in "Bagration". Dropped out of the war in one month. Outwardly calm, reserved, indifferent people.

8 slide.

7. The narrator is an observant person. On what occasion does he say: “Why go far into history?”

“... day and night, scary funnels rumble, gurgle and sob, which even geese avoid. At night, at the pool, it’s not at all comfortable ... it will rinse through the water ... from the pit, the moty owner is a catfish.
“The channel narrowed, became infested, clean sands ... dragged on with cocklebur ... There were no tractions - rapids, ... where cast ones drilled the surface of the river ... ides ... a dirty gray melyak stuck out with a hump ... ".

Ugly attitude of people to living nature. The author makes us feel guilty for her tragic condition.

9 slide.

8. Did the change on the river affect the lives of the heroes?

“I approach and do not believe my eyes ... the stupid (gander) is unaware that ... recently there were six or seven meters of black ebullient depth under him.”

“Looking at the overgrown river ... And don’t even unwind your fishing rods! Dont spoil spirit."

"I see your hut was burned."

“There was a doll lying in a dirty roadside ditch. She was lying on her back, her arms and legs spread out ... the blond silky hair on her head was burned in places, her eyes were gouged out, and in place of her nose there was a large hole gaping ... burnt by a cigarette ... ".

9. What would you call this act? Prank, joke, heartlessness?

10 slide.

10. Compare Nosov's story "Doll" andpoem by K. Sluchevsky?

The child threw the doll. The doll quickly fell off

It hit the ground deafly and fell backwards ...

Poor doll! You lay so still

With her mournful figure, so humbly broke,

She spread her arms, closed her clear eyes ...

You, doll, looked like a person!

Teacher. Human and doll LIKE!?

11. Think about what he said R. Gamzatov?

Our eyes are much higher than our feet,

In that sense, I see a special sign.

We were created so that everyone can

Check everything before you take a step.

11 slide.

12. What made a person act like a barbarian?

The moral fall of man. Mental inferiority of people. We all remember what happened before!? People have lost eternal values: kindness, respect for all living things, the ability to evaluate their actions, the worst thing, have gained pleasure in arrogance.As F. Bacon said: “In every person, nature sprouts either as cereals or as weeds; let him timely water the first and destroy the second.”

12 slide.

13. How do the characters explain the origins of evil?

“Many have become accustomed to evil and do not see how evil they themselves are doing. And from them children are recruited ... ". "Children run around - get used to sacrilege ...".

Nosov talks about the responsibility of adults for the fate of children.

13 slide.

14. What can childhood endure from those pictures of life that Nosov paints? Work with text.

"And people go by - each on his own business ...".
“Couples are passing by, holding hands, talking about love, dreaming about children.”
“They bring babies in strollers and they won’t lead an eyebrow.”
“How many students passed by!”
“And most importantly, teachers: after all, they also pass by ... What will you teach, what beauty, what kindness, if you are blind, your soul is deaf ...

The writer raises the problem of raising children in the family. Indifference, indifference, vulgarity of adults to everything around. Next to this are the children.

Think!

If you're thinking a year ahead, plant a seed.

If you're thinking decades ahead, plant a tree.

If you think a century ahead, educate a person.

Eastern wisdom.

14 slide.

15. Why does Akimych's heart shrink?

“... another (doll) will be done in such a way that you cannot distinguish it from a living child, and cries like a human ...”

“Maybe this has happened to me since the war ... It beats me all over ...”.

Akimych is not indifferent person. Suffering: torn dolls remind him of the war.

15 slide.

16. Read the description of the funeral of the doll. What conclusions about Akimych's personality can be drawn from this passage?

He worries about everything.

17. What would you do if such a hero met you on the way?

16 slide.

18. "You can't bury everything ...". What is it about?

Akimych cannot calmly accept cruelty and indifference. “Akimych suddenly turned pale, his face tensed up with that terrible fossil of his ... as if something unspoken was stuck and frozen in them ...”.

“On the shore, in a thatched hut, I had to spend the summer nights more than once.”

Akimych found "near the hut for a secret fishing business ...".

19. Why do heroes value silence?

Get away from the hustle and bustle of life. Get lost in solitude.

20. Let's go back to the beginning of the lesson. ( Hyperlink ). What can you add about the problem of the lesson. What is the author trying to convince us of?

This is an instructive story: why is life given to us: are the young able to preserve spiritual values.

17 slide. Many famous people have thought about the meaning of life and their thoughts and reflections have come down to us. They resulted in aphorisms, poems.Do these thoughts resonate with our conversation?

The night is dark

Leaves make noise

The wind is whistling

The drop has a fraction,

And people have an inquisitive mind

And live stubborn ability.

L. Martynov.

Meaning of life.

Life can be lived differently.

It is possible in sorrow and in joy.

Eat on time, drink on time

Do stupid things right away.

And you can do it this way: get up at dawn

And, thinking of a miracle.

Get the burnt sun with your hand

And give to people.

Sergei Ostrovoy.

18 slide. Reflection.

Continue…

The good life is...
The most important in life….
Can't live without...
I love nature...

"To live is to act." A. France

"He who does not respond to the call, refuses why he is called." Swahali
“Life does not give anything without hard work and unrest.” Horace

Homework.

Creative work.

How do you understand the quote?

Do you understand the purpose of life?

Happy man,

You live for life.

A. S. Pushkin.

Evgeny Nosov

Doll (compilation)

Kingfisher

He threw his rucksack over his shoulders, straightened his cap, which had been knocked down by the strap, and suddenly took my sleeve:

I warmly shook hands with my comrade and promised to continue my friendship with the kingfisher.

She sat, my princess sat on a fishing rod, squeaked thinly, as if she sobbed, and flew along the coast, often flapping her wings.

I really liked the bird. To offend such a hand is not raised. Not in vain, it turns out, my friend warned me.

The end of my vacation was approaching. In the mornings, merry shore swallows no longer flew over the river. They have already left their native river and set off on a long and difficult journey.

“Well, why are you flying, fool!” - it broke out of me. “You can’t escape from such a robber on wings. Hide quickly in the bushes!

The kingfisher, ruffled, sat motionless on a vine. Against the backdrop of a blazing sunset, the lonely figure of a bird clearly loomed. She seemed to be listening carefully to my words.

- Well, goodbye! ..

I took off my cap, waved to my princess and wished with all my heart to find the silver key.

living flame

Aunt Olya looked into my room, again caught me behind the papers, and, raising her voice, said commandingly:

“Olga Petrovna, what is it,” I remark, “do you not sow poppies in flowerbeds?”

- Well, what color is the poppy! she answered confidently. - It's a vegetable. It is sown in the beds along with onions and cucumbers.

- What do you! I laughed. - In some old song it is sung:

And her forehead, like marble, is white,
And the cheeks are burning, as if the color of poppies.

But all the same, I secretly poured a pinch of poppy into the very middle of the flower bed. She turned green after a few days.

Did you sow poppies? - Aunt Olya approached me. - Oh, you are such a mischievous! So be it, I left the top three, I felt sorry for you. The rest were all weeded out.