Matrenin yard tragedy of matryona. Characteristics of Matryona ("Matryona Dvor" A

Relatives, even after the death of the heroine, do not find a kind word about her, and all because of Matryona’s neglect of property: “... and she didn’t chase the equipment; and not careful; and she didn’t even keep a pig, for some reason she didn’t like to feed it; and, stupid, helped strangers for free ... ". In the characterization of Matrena, as Solzhenitsyn substantiates it, the words “didn’t exist”, “didn’t have”, “didn’t chase” dominate - sheer self-denial, selflessness, self-restraint. and not for the sake of boasting, not because of asceticism ... It’s just that Matryona has a different system of values: everyone has it, “but she didn’t have it”; everyone had, "but she didn't"; “I didn’t get out to buy things and then protect them more than my life”; “She did not accumulate property for death. a dirty white goat, a rickety cat, ficuses ... ”- that’s all that remains of Matryona in this world. and because of the remaining miserable property - a hut, a room, a shed, a fence, a goat - all Matryona's relatives almost fought. They were reconciled only by the considerations of a predator - if you go to court, then "the court will give the hut not to one or the other, but to the village council"

Choosing between “to be” and “to have”, Matryona always preferred to be: to be kind, sympathetic, cordial, disinterested, hardworking; preferred to give to the people around her - acquaintances and strangers, and not to take. and those who got stuck at the crossing, having killed Matryona and two more - both Thaddeus and the "self-confident fat-faced" tractor driver, who himself died - preferred to have: one wanted to move the upper room to a new place at a time, the other - to earn money for one "walker" of the tractor . The thirst to "have" turned against "to be" a crime, the death of people, the trampling of human feelings, moral ideals, the death of his own soul.

So one of the main culprits of the tragedy - Thaddeus - for three days after the incident at the railway crossing, until the very funeral of the dead, was trying to regain his upper room. “His daughter was touched by reason, judgment hung on his son-in-law, in own house his son, who had been killed by him, was lying on the same street, the woman whom he had once loved, who he had killed, Thaddeus only came to stand at the coffins for a short time, holding his beard. His high forehead was darkened by a heavy thought, but this thought was to save the logs of the upper room from the fire and machinations of the Matryona sisters. Considering Thaddeus the undoubted killer of Matryona, the narrator - after the death of the heroine - says: “for forty years his threat lay in the corner, like an old cleaver, but it still hit ...”.

The opposition between Thaddeus and Matryona in Solzhenitsyn's story acquires symbolic meaning and turns into a kind of author's philosophy of life. comparing the character, principles, behavior of Thaddeus with other Talnov residents, the narrator Ignatich comes to a disappointing conclusion: "... Thaddeus was not alone in the village." Moreover, this very phenomenon – the thirst for property – turns out, from the author’s point of view, to be a national disaster: “What is our good, national or mine, the language strangely calls our property. And it is considered shameful and stupid to lose him in front of people. And the soul, conscience, trust in people, a friendly disposition towards them, love to lose is not ashamed, and not stupid, and not pitiful - that's what's scary, that's what is unrighteous and sinful, according to Solzhenitsyn.

Greed for "good" (property, material) and disdain for real good, spiritual, moral, incorruptible, are things that are tightly connected with each other, supporting one another. And the point here is not in property, not in relation to something as to one's own, personally suffered, endured, thought out and felt. Rather, the opposite: spiritual and moral goodness consists in the transfer, donation of something of one's own to another person; the acquisition of material "good" is the hunger of someone else.

All critics of "Matryona Dvor", of course, understood that the writer's story, with his Matryona, Thaddeus, Ignatich and the "ancient", all-knowing old woman, embodying eternity folk life, her ultimate wisdom (she only speaks when she appears in Matryona’s house: “There are two riddles in the world:“ how I was born - I don’t remember how I’ll die - I don’t know, ”and then - after the funeral and wake of Matryona - she looks“ from above ”, from ovens, “mutely, condemningly, indecently lively fifty- and sixty-year-old youth), this is the “truth of life”, real “ folk characters”, so different from those habitually shown as prosperous in the same type of Soviet literature.

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Even summary story " Matrenin yard”, written by A. Solzhenitsyn in 1963, is able to give the reader an idea of ​​the patriarchal life of the Russian rural hinterland.

Summary of "Matrenin Dvor" (introduction)

On the way from Moscow, at 184 km along the Murom and Kazan branches, even six months after the events described, the trains involuntarily slowed down. For a reason known only to the narrator and the machinists.

Summary of “Matryona Dvor” (part 1)

The narrator, having returned from Asia in 1956, after a long absence (he fought, but did not immediately return from the war, received 10 years in the camps), got a job as a teacher of mathematics in a village school in the Russian hinterland. Not wanting to live in the village barracks of "Peat Product", he was looking for a corner in a rural house. In the village of Talnovo, the lodger was brought to Matryona Vasilievna Grigorieva, a lonely woman of about sixty.

Matrona's hut was old and solid, built for big family. The spacious room was darkish, at the window in pots and tubs silently "crowded" ficuses - favorites of the hostess. There was still a rickety cat, mice, and cockroaches in the tiny kitchenette.

Matrena Vasilievna was ill, but they did not give disability, and she did not receive pensions, having no relation to the working class. On the collective farm she worked for workdays, that is, there was no money.

Matrena herself ate and fed Ignatich - the guest teacher - poorly: small potatoes and porridge from the cheapest cereals. The villagers were forced to steal fuel from the trust, for which they could be imprisoned. Although peat was mined in the district, but local residents was not supposed to be sold.

The difficult life of Matrena consisted of various things: collecting peat and dry stumps, as well as lingonberries in the swamps, running around the offices for certificates for retirement, secretly extracting hay for a goat, as well as relatives and neighbors. But this winter, life improved a little - she let go of her illness, and they began to pay her for a tenant and a tiny pension. She was happy that she was able to order new felt boots, turn an old railway overcoat into a coat and buy a new padded jacket.

Summary of "Matryona Dvor" (part 2)

Once the teacher found in the hut a black bearded old man - Faddey Grigoriev, who came to ask for his son-loser. It turned out that Matryona was supposed to marry Thaddeus, but he was taken to the war, and for three years there was no news from him. Efim, his younger brother, wooed her (after the death of her mother, there were not enough hands in the family), and she married him in a hut built by their father, where she has lived to this day.

Thaddeus, returning from captivity, did not cut them down just because he took pity on his brother. He married, also choosing Matryona, cut down a new hut, where he still lived with his wife and six children. That other Matryona, after beatings, often resorted to complaining about her husband's greed and cruelty.

Matrena Vasilievna had no children of her own; she buried six newborns before the war. Yefim was taken to the war, and he went missing.

Then Matryona asked her namesake for a baby to raise. She raised, as her own, the girl Kira, whom she successfully married - to a young driver in a neighboring village, from where help was sometimes sent to her. Often ill, the woman decided to bequeath part of the hut to Kira, although three Matryona sisters counted on her.

Kira asked for her inheritance in order to eventually build a house. Old Thaddeus demanded to give up the hut during the life of Matryona, although she was sorry to death to break the house in which she had lived for forty years.

He gathered relatives to dismantle the upper room, and then reassemble it again, he built a hut together with his father for himself and the first Matryona. While the men's axes were clattering, the women were preparing moonshine and appetizers.

When transporting a hut, a sleigh with boards got stuck. Three people died under the wheels of a steam locomotive, including Matryona.

Summary of “Matrenin Dvor” (part 3)

At a village funeral, the funeral was more like a settling of scores. Matryona's sisters, lamenting over the coffin, expressed their thoughts - they defended the rights to her inheritance, but the relatives of the late husband did not agree. The insatiable Thaddeus, by hook or by crook, dragged the logs of the donated upper room into his yard: it was indecent and shameful to lose good.

Listening to the reviews of fellow villagers about Matryona, the teacher realized that she did not fit into the usual framework of peasant ideas about happiness: she did not keep a pig, did not strive to acquire goodness and outfits that hide all the vices and ugliness of the soul under her brilliance. The grief from the loss of her children and her husband did not make her angry and heartless: she still helped everyone for free and rejoiced in all the good things that she met in life. And all she got was ficuses, a rickety cat and a dirty white goat. Everyone who lived nearby did not understand that she was the true righteous woman, without whom neither the village, nor the city, nor our land could stand.

In his story Solzhenitsyn ("Matryona Dvor"), the summary does not include this episode, he writes that Matryona believed passionately, rather she was a pagan. But it turned out that in her life she did not deviate one iota from the rules of Christian morality and morality.

Solzhenitsyn's story is a reflection of Russian reality in the 50s of the 20th century, when a totalitarian regime ruled. It was hard to live then common people. Especially tragic was often female share. And so the author makes the main character a woman.

- the main character, an elderly woman living in a remote village. Life there is far from ideal: hard work, lack of the benefits of civilization. But for a woman this is not important, she sees the meaning of life in helping other people. And she is not afraid of work - she always helps to dig up someone else's garden, or works on a collective farm, while she herself has nothing to do with it.

The image of the heroine surprises with its purity. But this woman had to overcome a lot: both the war and the loss of children. But she remained true to her principles, did not become embittered, but, on the contrary, became a discovery for people. Matryona is unique, because such selfless people like her, almost gone, according to the author.

The selflessness of the heroine was often used by others. They asked for help, and when they got what they wanted, they also mocked her innocence. The villagers considered Matryona stupid, because they could not understand her sincere impulses.

The worst thing is that Matryona's longtime lover, Thaddeus, with whom they wanted to marry in their youth, turned out to be selfish. He was a stately-looking old man, but his soul turned black, like his beard.

Using Matryona's long-standing guilt before him for marrying his brother, he decided to take advantage of himself. Once it came to her house with a demand to separate the upper room from the hut and give adopted daughter Kira. At first, the old woman was indignant, because separating the upper room from the entire hut is not safe, the whole house can collapse. But Thaddeus insisted on his own. As a result, Matryona agreed, because she felt guilty before him and loved Kira very much.

After Matryona agreed to separate the upper room, and with her sons they began to transport logs. Matryona also volunteered to help them. So the heroine personally helped to destroy her house. And although he was dear to her, Thaddeus and Cyrus were dearer. For their sake, she even decided to approach railway, which was always feared and, as it turned out, not in vain. After all, the sleigh with logs got stuck on the road - and Matryona was crushed by a train. Everything ends so stupidly for the last righteous woman of this village.

Matryona always lived by the principle: do not spare your goodness or your work for others. But her efforts were never appreciated. The tragic ending once again emphasizes the hardness of society. Alexander Solzhenitsyn wanted to show how unique virtue is and that people have forgotten how to respect it.

The relationship between the heroine and those around her is practical on the part of others and disinterested on the part of Matryona.

Consider the work that Solzhenitsyn created in 1959. We are interested in its summary. "Matrenin Dvor" - a story that was published for the first time in the magazine " New world" in 1963.

The author begins his story with a story that at the 184th km from Moscow, following the Ryazan railway, trains slowed down for another six months after one event. After reading the summary of the book "Matryona Dvor", you will find out what happened at this place. Passengers looked out the windows for a long time, wanting to see with their own eyes the reason, which was known only to the drivers.

Beginning of the first chapter

The following events begin the first chapter, its summary. "Matryona Dvor" consists of three chapters.

Ignatich, the narrator, returned to Russia from sultry Kazakhstan in the summer of 1956, having not yet determined exactly where he would go. He was not expected anywhere.

How the narrator ended up in the village of Talnovo

He could do only the most unskilled work a year before the events described in the work. He would hardly have been hired even as an electrician for a decent construction. And the narrator "wanted to teach." Now he entered timidly into the Vladimir oblono and asked if mathematics teachers were needed in the outback? I was very surprised by this statement of local officials, since everyone wanted to work closer to the city. The narrator from the work "Matryona's Dvor" was sent to the High Field. A brief summary, analysis of this story is best compiled, mentioning that he did not immediately settle in the village of Talnovo.

Apart from the beautiful name, there was nothing in the High Field. He refused this work, because it was necessary to eat something. Then he was offered to go to the Peat product station. This unsightly village consisted of houses and barracks. There was no forest here at all. This place turned out to be rather dull, but I didn’t have to choose. Ignatich, having spent the night at the station, learned that the nearest village was Talnovo, followed by Spudni, Chaslitsy, Ovintsy, Shevertni, which were away from the railway tracks. This interested our hero, he decided to find housing here.

Ignatich's new place of residence - Matrenin Dvor

Brief summary in parts further developments will be described in succession. It turned out shortly after the narrator's arrival at the place that it was not so easy to find housing. Despite the fact that the teacher was a profitable tenant (the school promised him a peat car in addition to paying for the apartment for the winter), all the huts here were overcrowded. Only on the outskirts did Ignatich find himself an unsightly shelter - Matryona's yard. Summary, analysis of works - all these are just auxiliary materials. For a holistic understanding of the story, you should familiarize yourself with the author's original.

Matrona's house was large, but unkempt and dilapidated. It was built soundly and long ago, on big family, but now only a single woman of about 60 lived here. Matryona was unwell. She complained of a "black disease", lay on the stove. The hostess did not show any particular joy at the sight of Ignatich, but he immediately understood that he was destined to settle here.

Life in Matryona's hut

Matryona spent most of her time on the stove, highlighting the best place numerous ficuses. The corner at the window was assigned to the guest. Here he put a table, a folding bed, books, fenced off from the main space with ficuses.

In addition to Matrena Vasilievna, cockroaches, mice and a lopsided cat lived in the hut. Cockroaches escaped from the cat behind wallpaper pasted in several layers. Soon the guest got used to his new life. At 4 o'clock in the morning the hostess got up, milked the goat, and then boiled potatoes in 3 iron pots: for the goat, for herself and for the guest. The food was monotonous: either "peeled potatoes", or barley porridge, or "cardboard soup" (as everyone in the village called it). However, Ignatich was also pleased with this, since life taught him to find the meaning of life not in food.

How Matrena Vasilievna was busy with her pension

The summary of the story "Matrenin Dvor" further introduces the reader in more detail to the hostess, with whom Ignatich settled. Matryona had many grievances that autumn. A new pension law came out at that time. Neighbors advised her to seek a pension, the right to which the woman “did not deserve,” because she worked for 25 years on a collective farm for workdays, and not for money. Now Matryona was sick, but she was not considered an invalid for the same reason. It was also necessary to apply for a pension for her husband, for the loss of a breadwinner. However, he had been gone for 15 years, from the very beginning of the war, and now it was not easy to get certificates from various places about his experience and earnings. Several times I had to rewrite these papers, correct them, then take them to the social security, and he was 20 km from Talnov. The village council was located 10 km in the other direction, and an hour's walk in the third direction was the village council.

Matryona is forced to steal peat

Having fruitlessly resembled 2 months, the old woman was exhausted - the heroine, which was created in the work of Solzhenitsyn ("Matryona's yard"). Brief summary, unfortunately, does not allow to make an exhaustive description of it. She complained of being harassed. After these senseless walks, Matryona set to work: she dug potatoes or went for peat and returned tired and enlightened. Ignatich asked her if the peat machine allocated by the school would not be enough? But Matryona assured him that it was necessary to stock up on three cars for the winter. Officially, the inhabitants were not entitled to peat, and for theft they were caught and tried. The chairman of the collective farm walked around the village, vaguely and demandingly or ingenuously looking into the eyes and talking about everything except fuel, because he stocked up himself. They pulled peat from the trust. It was possible to carry away a bag of 2 pounds at a time. It was enough for one fire.

Work-saturated everyday life of Matryona Vasilievna

Matryona's workdays are important component works. It is impossible to do without their description, making up a summary of the story "Matryona Dvor" by Solzhenitsyn. Matryona went 5-6 times a day, hiding the stolen peat so that it would not be taken away. The patrol often caught women at the entrance to the village, and also searched the yards. However, the approach of winter was inevitable, and people were forced to overcome fear. Let's take a look at this in a summary. Matrenin Dvor introduces us further to Ignatich's observations. He noticed that the day of her mistress was filled with many things. The woman carried peat, stored lingonberries for the winter, hay for the goat, dug "carts". We had to mow in the swamps, because the collective farm cut off plots for the disabled, although for 15 acres it was necessary to work out at the local collective farm, where there were not enough hands. When Ignatich's mistress was called to collective farm work, the woman did not protest, she dutifully agreed, having learned about the time of collection. Often called to help Matryona and neighbors - to plow a garden or dig potatoes. The woman dropped everything and went to help the petitioner. She did it completely free of charge, considering it a duty.

She also had a job when she had to feed the goat herders every 1.5 months. The woman went to the general store and bought food that she did not eat herself: sugar, butter, canned fish. The hostesses laid out in front of each other, trying to better feed the shepherds, as they would be praised throughout the village if something went wrong.

Matryona was sometimes overwhelmed by illness. Then the woman lay, practically not moving, not wanting anything but peace. At this time, Masha, her close friend from an early age, came to help with the housework.

The life of Matrena Timofeevna is getting better

However, things called Matryona to life, and after lying down for a while, she got up, paced slowly, then began to move more quickly. She told Ignatich that she was brave and strong in her youth. Now Matryona was afraid of fire, and trains - most of all.

The life of Matryona Vasilievna nevertheless improved by winter. They began to pay her a pension of 80 rubles, and even the school allocated 100 rubles for a guest. Matryona was envied by her neighbors. And she, having sewn 200 rubles into the lining of her coat for her funeral, said that now she, too, saw a little peace. Relatives even showed up - 3 sisters, who were afraid before that the woman would ask them for help.

Second chapter

Matrena tells Ignatich about herself

Ignatich eventually spoke about himself. He reported that he had for a long time in prison. The old woman nodded her head in silence, as if she had suspected this before. He also learned that Matrona had married before the revolution and immediately settled in this hut. She had 6 children, but they all died in infancy. The husband did not return from the war, went missing. Kira lived with Matryona. And returning one day from school, Ignatich found a tall black old man in a hut. His face was completely overgrown with a black beard. It turned out to be Faddey Mironovich, Matrena's brother-in-law. He came to ask for Anton Grigoriev, his negligent son, who studied in the 8th grade. Matrena Vasilievna told in the evening that she almost married him in her youth.

Faddey Mironovich

Faddey Mironovich wooed her first, earlier than Yefim. She was 19 and he was 23. However, the war broke out, and Thaddeus was taken to the front. Matryona waited for him for 3 years, but not a single news came. The revolutions were over, and Yefim got married. On July 12, on Peter's Day, they got married, and on October 14, on Pokrov, Thaddeus returned from Hungarian captivity. If not for his brother, Thaddeus would have killed both Matryona and Yefim. He said later that he would be looking for a wife with the same name. And so Thaddeus brought the "second Matryona" to a new hut. He often beat his wife, and she ran to complain about him to Matryona Vasilievna.

Kira in the life of Matryona

What, it would seem, to regret Thaddeus? 6 children were born to him by his wife, all of them survived. And the children of Matrena Vasilievna died before they reached 3 months. The woman believed that she was spoiled. In 1941, Thaddeus was not taken to the front because of his blindness, but Yefim went to war and went missing. Matryona Vasilievna begged Kira, her youngest daughter, from the "second Matryona" and raised her for 10 years, after which she married her to a machinist from Cherust. Then, suffering from illnesses and awaiting her death, Matryona announced her will - to give after death a separate log house of the chamber as a legacy to Kira. She said nothing about the hut itself, which her three sisters were planning to get.

Matrona's hut was broken

Let's describe how Matryona's hut was broken, continuing the summary. "Matryona Dvor" - a story in which Solzhenitsyn tells us further that Kira soon after frank conversation the narrator with her mistress came to Matryona from Cherusti, and old Thaddeus became worried. It turned out that in Cherusty young people were offered a plot of land for building a house, so Kira needed Matrena's room. Fired up to seize the plot in Cherusty, Thaddeus frequented Matryona Vasilievna, demanding from her the promised upper room. The woman did not sleep for 2 nights, it was not easy for her to decide to break the roof under which she lived for 40 years. This meant for Matryona the end of her life. Thaddeus came one day in February with 5 sons and they made 5 axes. While the men were breaking down the hut, the women were preparing moonshine for the day of loading. A son-in-law arrived from Cherusti, a machinist with a tractor driver. However, the weather changed dramatically, and for 2 weeks the broken room was not given to the tractor.

fatal event

Matryona gave up very much during this time. Her sisters scolded her for giving Kira the room, the cat had gone somewhere ... The road finally settled, a tractor arrived with a large sledge, then the second one was hastily knocked down. They began to argue about how to take them - together or separately. The driver-in-law and Thaddeus were afraid that the tractor could not pull two sledges, and the tractor driver did not want to make two walks. He did not have time to make them overnight, and the tractor should be in the garage by morning. The men, having loaded the upper room, sat down at the table, but not for long - the darkness forced them to hurry. Matryona jumped out after the men, complaining that one tractor was not enough. Matryona did not return after an hour or 4. At one o'clock in the morning there was a knock on the hut and 4 railway workers entered. They asked if the workers and the tractor driver had been drinking before they left. Ignatich blocked the entrance to the kitchen, and they noticed with annoyance that there was no drinking bout in the hut. Leaving, one of them said that everyone was "turned around", and the fast train almost went off the rails.

Details of what happened

Let's include some details of this tragic event in our summary of the story "Matryona Dvor". Matryona's friend, Masha, who came with the workers, said that a tractor with the first sled crossed the crossing, but the second, home-made, got stuck, as the cable pulling them burst. The tractor tried to pull them out, the son of Thaddeus and the tractor driver got along with the cable, Matryona also undertook to help them. The driver was watching to ensure that the train from Cherustey did not turn up. And then a shunting locomotive was moving backwards, moving without lights, and it crushed the three of them. The tractor was working, so the locomotive was not heard. What happened to the heroes of the work? The summary of Solzhenitsyn's story "Matrenin Dvor" gives an answer to this question. The drivers survived and immediately rushed to slow down the ambulance. They barely made it. Witnesses fled. Kira's husband almost hanged himself, he was pulled out of the noose. After all, because of him, the aunt and brother of his wife died. Kira's husband then went to surrender to the authorities.

Third chapter

The summary of the story "Matryona Dvor" continues with a description of the third chapter of the work. Matryona's remains were brought in a sack in the morning. Her three sisters came, locked the chest, seized the property. They wept, reproaching the woman that she died without listening to them, allowing them to break the chamber. Approaching the coffin, the ancient old woman said sternly that there are two riddles in the world: a person does not remember how he was born, and does not know how he will die.

What happened after the event on the railroad

The summary of the story "Matryona Dvor" cannot be described by chapters without telling about what happened after the fatal event on the railway. The tractor driver left the human court. The road administration was to blame for the fact that the busy crossing was not guarded, that the locomotive "raft" was moving without lights. That is why they wanted to blame everything on booze, and when this did not work out, they decided to hush up the court. The repair of the mangled tracks took 3 days. The gratuitous logs were burned by the freezing workers. Thaddeus rushed about, trying to save the remnants of the chamber. He did not grieve about the woman he once loved and his son, who had been killed. Having gathered his relatives, he took the upper room to a detour through 3 villages to his yard. Those who died at the crossing were buried in the morning. Thaddeus came after the funeral, dressed up about property with Matryona's sisters. In addition to the upper room, he was given a barn in which a goat lived, as well as the entire internal fence. He brought everything with his sons to his yard.

The story that Solzhenitsyn wrote ("Matryona's Dvor") is coming to an end. A summary of the final events of this work is as follows. They boarded up Matrona's hut. Ignatich moved in with her sister-in-law. She tried in every possible way to humiliate his former mistress, saying that she helped everyone disinterestedly, was dirty and clumsy. And only then the image of Matryona surfaced before the narrator, with whom he lived side by side, not understanding her. This woman didn't go out of her way to buy things and then save them. more life, she did not chase after the outfits that embellish the villains and freaks. Unappreciated and understood by no one, she was that righteous man, without whom not a single village, not a single city stands. Our whole land does not stand without it, as Solzhenitsyn believes. "Matrenin Dvor", a summary of which was presented in this article, is one of the most famous and the best works this author. Andrey Sinyavsky called it "a fundamental thing" village literature"in our country. Of course, the summary does not convey the artistic value of the work. "Matrenin Dvor" (Solzhenitsyn) was described chapter by chapter in order to acquaint the reader with the plot outline of the story.

Surely you will be interested to know that the work is based on real events. In reality, the heroine of the story was called Zakharova Matryona Vasilievna. In the village of Miltsevo, the events described in the story actually took place. We have only summarized it. "Matrenin Dvor" (Solzhenitsyn), described chapter by chapter in this article, introduces the reader to village life in Soviet time, with the type of a righteous person, without which not a single village stands.

"Matrenin Dvor" by Solzhenitsyn - a story about tragic fate open, not like her fellow villagers woman Matrena. First published in Novy Mir in 1963.

The story is told in the first person. Main character becomes Matrena's tenant and talks about her amazing fate. The first title of the story, “A village is not worth without a righteous man,” conveyed the idea of ​​a pure, disinterested soul well, but was changed to avoid problems with censorship.

Main characters

Narrator- a middle-aged man who served lines in prison and wants a quiet, peaceful life in the Russian outback. Settled at Matryona and talks about the fate of the heroine.

Matryona a single woman in her sixties. She lives alone in her hut, often gets sick.

Other characters

Thaddeus- a former lover of Matryona, a tenacious, greedy old man.

Sisters Matryona- women who seek their own benefit in everything treat Matryona as a consumer.

One hundred and eighty-four kilometers from Moscow, on the road to Kazan and Murom, train passengers were always surprised by a serious decrease in speed. People rushed to the windows and talked about the possible repair of the tracks. Passing this section, the train picked up its previous speed again. And the reason for the slowdown was known only to the machinists and the author.

Chapter 1

In the summer of 1956, the author was returning from "a burning desert at random just to Russia." His return "was dragged on for ten years," and he had no where, no one to rush to. The narrator wanted to go somewhere in the Russian hinterland with forests and fields.

He dreamed of "teaching" away from the bustle of the city, and he was sent to the town with the poetic name High Field. The author did not like it there, and he asked to be redirected to a place with a terrible name "Peat product". Upon arrival at the village, the narrator understands that it is “easier to come here than to leave later.”

In addition to the hostess, mice, cockroaches, and a lame cat picked up out of pity lived in the hut.

Every morning, the hostess woke up at 5 am, afraid to oversleep, because she did not really trust her watch, which was already 27 years old. She fed her "dirty white crooked-horned goat" and prepared a simple breakfast for the guest.

Somehow Matryona learned from rural women that "a new pension law has come out." And Matryona began to seek a pension, but it was very difficult to get it, the different offices to which the woman was sent were located tens of kilometers from each other, and the day had to be spent, because of one signature.

People in the village lived in poverty, despite the fact that peat bogs spread for hundreds of kilometers around Talnovo, the peat from them "belonged to the trust." Rural women had to drag bags of peat for themselves for the winter, hiding from the raids of the guards. The land here was sandy, yielded by the poor.

People in the village often called Matryona to their garden, and she, leaving her business, went to help them. Talnovo women almost lined up to take Matryona to their garden, because she worked for pleasure, rejoicing at a good harvest from others.

Once a month and a half, the hostess had a turn to feed the shepherds. This dinner "driven Matryona into high flow, because I had to buy her sugar, canned food, butter. The grandmother herself did not allow herself such a luxury even for the holidays, living only on what the wretched garden gave her.

Matryona once told about the horse Volchka, who got scared and "carried the sleigh into the lake." “The men jumped back, and she grabbed the bridle and stopped it.” At the same time, despite the seeming fearlessness, the hostess was afraid of the fire and, to the point of trembling in her knees, the train.

By the winter, Matryona nevertheless counted her pension. Neighbors began to envy her. And my grandmother finally ordered herself new felt boots, a coat from an old overcoat, and hid two hundred rubles for the funeral.

Once, on Epiphany evenings, three of her younger sisters. The author was surprised, because he had not seen them before. I thought maybe they were afraid that Matryona would ask them for help, so they didn’t come.

With the receipt of a pension, the grandmother seemed to come to life, and the work was easier for her, and the disease bothered less often. Only one event darkened my grandmother's mood: at Epiphany in the church, someone took her pot of holy water, and she was left without water and without a pot.

Chapter 2

Talnovo women asked Matryona about her lodger. And she passed questions to him. The author told the hostess only that he was in prison. He himself did not ask about the old woman's past, did not think that there was something interesting there. I only knew that she got married and came to this hut as a mistress. She had six children, but they all died. Later she had a pupil Kira. And Matrona's husband did not return from the war.

Somehow, having come home, the narrator saw an old man - Faddey Mironovich. He came to ask for his son - Antoshka Grigoriev. The author recalls that for this insanely lazy and arrogant boy, who was transferred from class to class just so as not to “spoil academic performance statistics”, sometimes for some reason Matryona herself asked. After the petitioner left, the narrator learned from the hostess that it was the brother of her missing husband. That evening she told him that she was to marry him. As a nineteen-year-old girl, Matrena loved Thaddeus. But he was taken to the war, where he went missing. Three years later, Thaddeus's mother died, the house was left without a mistress, and Thaddeus's younger brother, Efim, came to woo the girl. No longer hoping to see her beloved, Matryona got married in the hot summer and became the mistress of this house, and in the winter Thaddeus returned “from the Hungarian captivity”. Matryona threw herself at his feet, and he said that "if it were not for my brother, I would have chopped you both."

He later took “another Matryona” as his wife, a girl from a neighboring village, whom he chose as his wife only because of her name.

The author recalled how she came to the hostess and often complained that her husband beats and offends her. She bore Thaddeus six children. And Matryona's children were born and died almost immediately. It's the corruption, she thought.

Soon the war began, and Yefim was taken away from where he never returned. Lonely Matryona took little Kira from the "Second Matryona" and raised her for 10 years, until the girl married a driver and left. Since Matryona was very ill, she soon took care of the will, in which she awarded the pupil part of her hut - a wooden annex room.

Kira came to visit and said that in Cherusty (where she lives), in order to get land for young people, it is necessary to build some kind of building. For this purpose, the bequeathed Matryona chamber was very suitable. Thaddeus began to come often and persuade the woman to give her up now, during her lifetime. Matryona did not feel sorry for the upper room, but it was terrible to break the roof of the house. And so, on a cold February day, Thaddeus came with his sons and began to separate the upper room, which he once built with his father.

For two weeks the chamber lay near the house, because the blizzard covered all the roads. But Matryona was not herself, besides, her three sisters came and scolded her for allowing her to give up the upper room. On the same days, "the rickety cat wandered off the yard and disappeared," which greatly upset the hostess.

Once, returning from work, the narrator saw how the old man Thaddeus drove a tractor and loaded a dismantled upper room onto two makeshift sledges. After they drank moonshine and in the dark they drove the hut to Cherusti. Matryona went to see them off, but never returned. At one in the morning the author heard voices in the village. It turned out that the second sleigh, which, out of greed, Thaddeus attached to the first, got stuck on flights, crumbled. At that time, a steam locomotive was moving, it was not visible because of the hillock, because of the tractor engine it was not audible. He ran into a sleigh, one of the drivers, the son of Thaddeus and Matryona, died. Late at night, Matryona's friend Masha came, told about it, grieved, and then told the author that Matryona bequeathed her "bundle" to her, and she wants to take it in memory of her friend.

Chapter 3

The next morning, Matryona was going to be buried. The narrator describes how the sisters came to say goodbye to her, crying “for show” and blaming Thaddeus and his family for her death. Only Kira grieved sincerely for the deceased foster mother, and the “Second Matryona”, the wife of Thaddeus. The old man himself was not at the wake. When they were transporting the ill-fated upper room, the first sleigh with boards and armor remained standing at the crossing. And, at a time when one of his sons died, his son-in-law was under investigation, and his daughter Kira almost lost her mind with grief, he only worried about how to deliver the sled home, and begged all his friends to help him.

After Matryona's funeral, her hut was "filled up until spring", and the author moved to "one of her sister-in-laws". The woman often remembered Matryona, but all with condemnation. And in these memories arose completely new look a woman that was so strikingly different about the people around. Matryona lived with open heart, always helped others, did not refuse anyone to help, although her health was weak.

A. I. Solzhenitsyn ends his work with the words: “We all lived next to her, and did not understand that she was the same righteous man, without whom, according to the proverb, not a village stands. Neither city. Not all our land."

Conclusion

The work of Alexander Solzhenitsyn tells about the fate of a sincere Russian woman, who "had fewer sins than a rickety cat." Image main character- this is the image of the same righteous man, without whom the village does not stand. Matryona devotes her whole life to others, there is not a drop of malice or falseness in her. People around take advantage of her kindness, and do not realize how holy and a pure soul this woman has.

Because brief retelling"Matrenin Dvor" does not convey the original author's speech and the atmosphere of the story, it is worth reading it in full.

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