home › Fuel system › Book: M. M

Book: M. M

From scraps of my confessions in the diary, the book “The Road to a Friend” (the diary of a writer) should eventually come out.

All my way was from loneliness to people.

The thought flashes to give up everything superfluous, the car, guns, dogs, photography and only deal with making ends meet, that is, write a book about yourself with all your diaries.

I do not speak about myself for myself: I recognize other people by myself and nature, and if I put “I”, then this is not my everyday “I”, but a production “I”, no less different from my individual “I”, than if I said "we".

My "I" in the diary should be the same as in work of art, i.e., look into the mirror of eternity, always act as the winner of the current time.

As for the immodest antics with intimate life, then you can figure out what exactly is in the light and what is on the table, only from the outside. And there is also a special courage of the artist not to listen to this voice from outside. Let me take JJ as an example. Rousseau: if he listened to this voice, we would not have "Confession".

I can give countless such examples.

road to a friend

Looking for a place to build a nest.

In Porechye

Yesterday in the morning winter rushed with frost and wind, disturbed the calm alternation of identical mild days. But in the middle of the day a rich sun appeared, and everything was tamed.

In the evening again the air after the frost and the sun were like summer on glaciers.

Tomorrow we are going to Porechye, near Zvenigorod, the recreation center of the Academy of Sciences.

At 9 o'clock we left Moscow and arrived at 11, well, as we had not dreamed of. Quiet, warm and large snow fell all day.

In the morning, in the sun, the trees were covered with a luxurious, hoarfrost, and this went on for about two hours, then the hoarfrost disappeared, the sun closed, and the day passed quietly, thoughtfully, with a drop in the middle of the day and fragrant lunar twilight in the evening.

Day flashed

What a day yesterday sparkled! As if the beauty came "of dazzling beauty." We became quiet, reduced, and, screwing up our eyes, looked at our feet. Only in the ravine in the shade, the trees dared to look up at all the white in the blue shadows.

The night was starry, and the day came cloudy, and thank God, otherwise you can’t cope with the sparkling March day, and not you, but he becomes your master.

Birches are chilly

The wind raged all night, and the sound of dripping water could be heard in the house. And in the morning it didn’t come, the frost: then the sun would peek out, then the clouds would close and shake the cereal, as if from a bag. And the clouds are rushing so fast, and the white birch trees are so chilly, so they sway!

quiet snow

They say about silence: "Quieter than water, lower than grass." But what could be quieter than falling snow! It snowed all day yesterday, and as if it brought silence from heaven.

This chaste snow in the chaste March light, with its infantile plumpness, created such a silence embracing all living and dead. And every sound only strengthened it: the rooster bellowed, the crow called, the woodpecker drummed, the jay sang with all its voices, but the silence from all this grew.

What silence, what grace, as if you yourself feel the beneficent growth of your understanding of life, touching such a height where there are no winds, silence does not pass.

live tree

From above, snow and snow, but from the rays of the sun, invisible droplets penetrated down to the point of contact of the twig with the snow. This water washes away, snow from a spruce paw falls onto another. Droplets, falling from paw to paw, move their fingers, and the whole Christmas tree from snow and drops, as if alive, agitated, moves, shines.

It is especially good to look at the back of the Christmas tree against the sun.

river under the snow

The river is so white, so covered with snow, that you recognize the banks only by the bushes. But the path winds through the river is noticeable, and only because in the daytime, when a man was squelching under the snow, water ran into his tracks, froze, and now it is noticeable from afar, and the walk is sharp and crunchy.

warm glade

How everything calms down when you retire into the forest, and finally the sun on a clearing protected from the wind sends rays, softening the snow.

And around the birch trees are hairy and chestnut, and through them a new clear blue sky, and white transparent clouds rush through the turquoise sky, one after another, as if someone is smoking, trying to blow smoke rings, and his rings all fail.

The starlings have arrived

The morning is clear as golden glass. Zaberezhi are growing, and it is already clear that the ice lies on the water and rises imperceptibly to the eye.

There are starlings on the trees in Dunin, and small birds - tap dances have flown in, in a multitude they sit and sing.

We are looking for where we can build a nest - buy a summer house, and so seriously, it seems like it really is, and at the same time somewhere you think secretly in yourself: all my life I have been looking for where to build a nest, every spring I buy somewhere some house, and the spring passes, and the birds sit on their eggs, and the fairy tale disappears.

The more beautiful the day, the more persistently nature calls and teases us: the day is good, but what are you like! And everyone responds - who knows how.

The happiest of all in this are the artists.

<…> big water overflows its banks and spreads far. But even a small stream hurries to the big water and even reaches the ocean.

Only stagnant water remains standing for itself, it goes out and turns green.

So is the love of people: a big one embraces the whole world, it makes everyone feel good. And there is simple, family love, running in streams in the same beautiful direction.

And there is love only for oneself, and in it a person is also like stagnant water.

It happens that one person will crawl through deep snow, and it will turn out to him that he did not work in vain. Another one will crawl along his trail with gratitude, then a third, a fourth, and there they already learned about a new path, and so thanks to one person, a winter road was determined for the whole winter.

But it happens that one person crawled through, and this trail will remain, no one will walk along it anymore, and a snowstorm will notice it so much that no trace will remain.

Such is our share on earth: and it happens that we work the same way, but happiness is different.

Delighted man

The dawn is softer than the cheek of a baby, and in silence it falls inaudibly and sings rarely and evenly a drop on the balcony ... From the depths of the soul, an admiring person rises and comes out with a greeting to a flying bird: “Hello, dear!” And she answers him.

She greets everyone, but only an admiring person understands the bird's greeting.

Birch juice

The evening is warm and quiet, but there were no woodcocks. Dawn was sound-intensive.

Now you no longer need to cut the birch to find out if the sap has begun to flow. Frogs jump, which means that there is juice in the birch. A foot sinks in the ground, as in snow - there is sap in a birch. Finches sing, larks and all song thrushes and starlings - there is sap in a birch.

My old thoughts all fled, like ice on a river - there is sap in a birch.

Lucky yoke

Buying a house is due today. Something like Podkolesin's wedding! And this is eternal: everywhere and everyone in the interval between decision and action wants to run away to the side, jump out the window.

I am dissatisfied with myself: I am all in moods, there is no courage, directness, there is no sufficient guile. My God! how I lived, how I live! One thing, only one thing is true - this is my path, my path is winding, deceptive, disappearing ...

Around the time of evening tea, the girls came: the chairman of the village council and the agronomist. They put a seal on the paper prepared by us, and the two-month struggle and hesitation were over: the ruins of the country house became our possession.

PART SEVEN. FLOOD

CHAPTER TWENTY

The wind, carrying snow dust, snow, before meeting with some tree, does not throw snow directly on the tree, on its trunk, but carries it around, and from this a hole comes out around the tree, which is noticeable even before spring.

Some say that such a spring bowl around the tree comes from water flowing down the trunk onto the snow. Of course, this also happens. But we also saw with our own eyes how the wind carried around the snow, and therefore a hole was made around the tree. We, too, have seen many times how, in the foggy spring thaw, the branches of a tree catch dampness in the air so zealously, as if it had been deliberately done so that with all the branches on all sides the trees would catch the fog in the air and turn it into water. Thickening on each branch, the fog scatters with water, flows in many streams onto the trunk, and along the trunk - the water flows like a river down into the near-stem bowl.

It often happens at this early spring time, various migratory birds sit on a tree to rest and, having spotted this first water of the near-stem bowl, bathe in it. We have seen how, on a sunny day, while swimming, a bird scatters so many small sprays in the air that over the bowl it folds into a short time little rainbow. And it all ends with the fact that the water from one near-stem bowl runs into another, overflows it, and so the first stream begins in the depths of the forest.

It happens every spring: somewhere from the depths of the forests the first stream comes out.

While in the first spring rivers passed on low horizons, in deep forest glades and suradyas that same spring of high water was slowly created, when all the near-stem bowls are washed away, all temporary dams break through, and all the huge forest water is streams, rivers, waterfalls and all sorts of temporary streams. and by channels it will rush into real permanent rivers and picks up from the shore and carries with it all the round wood prepared for rafting in winter.

Gradually, slowly, a flood is being prepared, and it often happens that it holds something for a long time, for many days, and in an hour it will all be over.

So it was this spring, in those hours when the hunters slept on the capercaillie current. The Sukhona lowland quickly became a sea, and the Red Manes were like islands on it.

Manuilo was the first to wake up and, looking out the window, immediately made a decision and did not even wake anyone up. A natural barge hauler is not afraid of water and, if it is necessary to save some zapon from a breakthrough, with a hook in hand for balance and on one log, it rushes in the stream and closes the breakthrough in splashes of foam.

Now he went down to the water, saw two logs not captured by the water, tied them up, cut down a long pole and, resting it against the bottom of the shallow sea, rushed off standing somewhere and disappeared into the fog.

One might have thought he had gone after the boat for the children and for the sleeping comrades.

So it was, of course, and so everyone thought when they woke up and missed the Manuils.

After waiting a little, they began to look into the misty distance and did not say anything to each other.

They waited and waited, but Manuila was not there.

With nothing to do, they lit a fire, boiled water. Thrifty brothers got tea and sugar. Silich laid out his stock of bread. So we sat down for tea. But Manuila was not there.

They talked a lot about capercaillie lekking on the stumps of a felled forest, they marveled a lot that a bird is so attached to its place, to its tree. They discussed the question of why it is so arranged that the capercaillie loses its hearing at the time when it sings.

They also talked about this and wanted to resolve the issue: the capercaillie sings from grief or from joy. Strong stood on the fact that the capercaillie sang with grief, and because when he sings, every feather trembles in him. Peter answered this that, after all, every feather in a living bird can also tremble with joy.

So the wise men decided and could not decide anything because they wanted to understand the capercaillie by themselves, but they could not know how the capercaillie himself feels.

We talked about everything. During the conversation, the kettle got cold, but Manuila was still not there ...

Silich was the first to get worried and began to look for material for the raft; Mitrasha and Nastya were fighting the raft; the brothers, without dividing, helped either the children or Silych. The work of raising trees was familiar to everyone from childhood, and that is why very soon a raft was made, the hunters went out on it, stood up and, resting their pole against the bottom, rode out.

As soon as they rounded the mane that blocked the view of the sea, Vygor appeared in the distance, like a small island in the sea. At the sight of the island, even Silych's old heart sank: there were no traces of the lower huts left, and there were no skiffs, and Maruska, apparently, had sailed off somewhere along with the skiffs.

The brothers also grieved when they saw on the water that now only one patch remained of all Vygor.

The raft moved slowly, but little by little, the eyes, looking closely, began to get used to and recognize something ahead. That's how they learned at the top of Vygor Manuily's hut: as it stood, it still stands untouched. Then they saw near this hut the skiffs pulled out to him. And when they swam even closer, then Maruska's neck stretched out of the basket on Silych's skiff and her head appeared.

At a close distance, Silych could not resist, shouted his "shvark" in a drake, and Maruska instantly took to the wing and sank onto the raft right into the hands of Silych.

Everything was saved, everything was in its place and folded in perfect order: food, a kettle, kettles, everything was moved and transferred here, but Manuila himself was not there.

How could Manuila's disappearance be understood? The idea that such a barge hauler could drown did not occur to anyone. And what a conversation there could be about an accident, if Manuilo took care of everyone so well, dragged everything upstairs to his hut. He did not even forget about the children, he folded all the food, took it down and put it in one place, washed all the dishes and even covered them with a cloth. So they all agreed that it was most likely that the sudden water forced him to make some decision in barge hauling affairs: maybe a zapon crackled somewhere, a tugboat picked up the famous barge hauler ...

During this conversation, Grandfather Silich did not take his eyes off the children and finally said:

Would you like to go back to Vologda with me...

Nastya looked at Mitrasha, and he, without thinking for a long time, said:

Manuilo won't leave us, we'll be waiting for him here. We need to go to Pinega, not back. We will wait!

How to know! - said Silych, - sometimes you yourself think firmly: I'll wait! but it will not come out our way. Seventy rivers flow into the Northern Dvina according to a rough estimate, and there are too many small ones, and there are still many such that in the summer there is nothing, only a sweaty place, and now there is a river, and also bears a round forest. You can’t even understand now what business is now boiling around the forest.

Of course, there is nothing to say about that in order to abandon the orphans, but we also need to think about that, that everyone will feel sorry for the orphans, everyone will help them, and besides, they are not offended now: they have enough food for a week. And again, you still need to know that in such a matter you yourself are not free: I would be glad with all my heart to do so, but it will pick you up and take you to another place.

Involuntarily, Manuilo left you, - said Silych, - not he himself, but the cause. Will you all be waiting? Get in the skiff with me!

Thank you grandpa! - answered Nastya, - we will still wait for Manuil here, and if he cannot help us, good people will not leave us.

As you know! - answered Silych, putting the dead drake into the very basket where Maruska also lived. - It’s the same to say: why did they leave their home, if not to find their father. Wander, children, search: Manuilo is not the only one good man in the world of white, everyone will help you, goodbye! Count on the sun, in five days I will visit you. Not Manuilo, so Silych will take you to Pinega!

So saying goodbye to the children, Silych nodded his head to the brothers, and they got into the skiff: the blind Pavel took up the oars, and the deaf Peter sat at the helm.

And everyone swam.

Further and further they sailed along the flood between the islands, and on every patch of flooded land someone met them and then saw them off: there were many hares, many water rats, and now a wolf, now a fox sit, look and are not afraid of people.

As it often happens with us, that right now there were some people around us, and we didn’t even think at all that they were so kind, so good and, most importantly, so necessary and necessary to us. And now they are leaving, they have completely left, disappeared from sight ...

And we were left alone!

We are alone, completely alone on a flooded island. Water is all around us, and now, instead of people, hungry, frightened mice and water rats swim towards us here on the water.

The children, at first a little embarrassed by their loneliness, stood in silence, each in his own way watching the swimming animals. Mitrasha chose one water rat for observation, apparently very tired. As soon as this rat reached the shore, it immediately fell on its side.

The rat is gone! - he said.

And I, - answered Nastya, - I follow the mouse, as soon as they get on the shore, they scatter in different directions, and this one, as soon as he touched the ground, sits. He must be bad?

Still would! - answered Mitrasha.

And, sliding his eyes over the little mouse, he returned to his rat. No! it turned out that she was only tired, not dead. After resting a little, she got up, and along the trunk of an ordinary basket willow she began to climb to the fork. Having reached, here in the fork she settled down. She felt good, comfortable on the saddle. On one side, a tree rose up, on the other, a branch was once cut, and now a whole bunch of thin twigs grew upwards from it.

Mitrasha became so interested in the fate of the water rat that he approached her closer and cautiously, moving forward step by step, stood very close to her and even saw what kind of eyes she had.

Such, it seemed to him, were intelligent eyes!

The tired water rat paid no attention to him.

It seemed to Mitrasha as if a light had lit up in the eyes of the water rat.

Maybe it was the sunbeam shining in the eye like that?

Of course it could be. But why, as soon as this something flashed in the eye, did the whole rat stir?

Why is this?

The rat settled closer to a bunch of thin willow twigs, once, moving its jaw, cut off the twig and began to eat around it.

Why is this too?

"Rodents!" Mitrasha answered himself, remembering his school book.

And he paid special attention to the fact that the cut of the rod was oblique and at one time.

The rat cleaned three twigs in this way, and when she cut off the fourth, she did not eat it, but pressed it to herself and, together with the twig, began to descend down the willow. Without letting go of the twig, the rat rushed into the water with it and swam, and as it rushed, Mitrasha again noticed a sparkle in her eye, and he again asked himself: “Why is that also?”

Of course, he was surprised that before each decision a light flashed in the rat's eye, but he did not understand, but only marveled and therefore asked when he was surprised: why this, why the other? From the rat, his surprise spread to everything, but the most important thing, of course, was that the rat swam with this twig. There was no doubt for Mitrasha that the rat had taken the twig as a reserve, in case she was just as tired and there was nothing to eat on the shore.

It means that the light that flickered for good reason, but why is this all?

And the rat swam with the twig farther and farther, and Mitrasha was the same as it was for us in our time. It seemed to us then that if we asked someone the most learned, the most intelligent, about everything in the world why this is done, then we could explain everything in the world, discover everything, and then - how good it would be for everyone to live then!

Mitrasha was now drowning in his unanswered questions. It seemed to him now, as if somewhere, not here with them, but in a real, good life, when one asks, the other answers him. And this life of theirs is not real if there is no answer to your question.

He used to have such doubt at home, and it always ended in grief for his father.

His father knew everything, and he does not have a father, and because of this his life is not real! ..

At this very time, when Mitrasha was busy with the rat and accompanied it very far, as long as the eye could endure, Nastya looked at her little mouse. Once even she tried to draw Mitrasha's attention to him and pulled his sleeve and showed him.

What do you need a mouse for? Mitrasha asked.

And again he returned to the floating rat and began, as we all once stood, on his “why?”.

Nastya had a completely different interest, but also no less strong than Mitrasha’s “why?”. Watching the little mouse, sitting in the same position, she went up to him and then she saw - he was very pretty and looked at her with kind, sweet eyes. The mouse was so cute that she dared to take it with two fingers and put it in her palm. The mouse was not afraid, did not try to run away, as if he was fine.

And it was then that Nastya directly asked the little mouse, just like a little man:

Who are you?

So she asked, as if the mouse was really native. She herself liked something about this question, she twirled the mouse, tossed it quietly from palm to palm and kept asking:

Tell me, finally, who are you?

The mouse visibly cheered up.

Realizing in her own way that the little mouse was merry, she carried him into the hut, found a piece of fat, cut it into thin pieces, gave it, and he began to eat.

After that, Nastya remembered how many mice were down there and whether it was possible to help them too. Rummaging around in the hut, she found potatoes, grated them with vegetable oil and took them downstairs on a saucer and put them to the mice. As soon as she moved away, the mice rushed to the saucer.

When Nastya returned to the hut, it turned out that the little mouse had eaten and now sat waiting with the hope that maybe he would get something again. Again Nastya took him in her palm and again asked: “Who are you? Why are people afraid of you, so small and pretty? Why did I myself, so recently, scream and throw myself on a bench or on a table, if a mouse ran across the floor in the hut? Why do they say: you, little mouse, are filthy?

The little mouse could not answer anything to the girl, but if he could, then to the question why he is so pretty and is considered filthy by people, he would answer this way:

“People, dear girl, love it more to eat, but you can’t eat me!”

The little mouse himself, of course, could not say so, but he looked as if he had said so to kind Nastya, and she repeated to him:

What a smart girl you are!

How many things did Mitrasha think before the clever rat disappeared from his eyes. He asked all his "why?", and missed that he had no answer. He still could not know then that the answers to this were all collected and you just need to learn how to read them, find them somewhere.

If the question came such that there was no answer to it yet, then this meant that he himself had to live, work hard and guess.

It was the same everywhere now along the flood: on all the hillocks, on the bushes, on the branches of the flooded trees, animals, large and small, taken by surprise, sat by surprise, hares, foxes, wolves, elks. On other twigs, small animals so often arranged themselves that from a distance they looked like brushes of black grapes.

All living areas have now been abandoned by them, all real life passed into their future, into a single question:

The whole lowland near Sukhona now thought about this, and small people joined this general thought.

Mitrasha asked in alarm:

Why is this all?

Nastya calmly smiled and said to everyone:

Who you are?

And, looking closely, she understood something of her own and repeated:

What a smart girl you are!

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

It happened more than once with us on the hunt in the spring, when the river would overflow and undressed trees here and there with their tops sticking out from under the water, and on these knots so many all sorts of small dark animals gather that another branch from them from afar seems like a bunch of black grapes.

Animals sit on branches, crowded in groups on islands. Others, small ones, are floating somewhere. And there are more animals: moose, bears, wolves swim, and everyone behaves like little frightened children.

Nearby, you see, the worst enemies are swimming: a pine marten and a squirrel, and it never occurs to a predatory marten to grab its squirrel, and it seems that all these animals, large and small animals, have one common thought or feeling, sort of like everyone would say:

"Church me!"

Only this one thing they feel and therefore they never bite in such trouble.

It happened to us at such a time during the spring flood while hunting: a friend will bring you to some island with bushes. Here you will tie bushes like a hut in order to hide in it, you will settle down. We agree: after the hunt, he will call for you.

And you remain alone, of course, still in complete darkness. At this time of the flood, only birds and hunters are happy. Of course, not only large animals swim, millions and millions of all kinds of fleas and lice swim. And on the shores of the islets, as if nothing had happened, agile wagtails run and meet these guests: various bugs and fleas.

What a disaster for all these insects and what fun for the wagtails: they will peck, here is a true feast for them all over the world!

And what expanse on spills to waterfowl of all breeds - ducks, geese, swans! You sit in a hut yourself, and before your eyes your decoy duck turns black from gray: all sorts of bugs, fleas and lice swim in masses, mistaking the bird for an island of salvation, climb on them.

Here, during the greatest disaster of animals and insects, bird love and freedom flare up with all passion. This, perhaps, is where the veneration of winged creatures, as messengers of heaven, came from among all of us: how happy they are!

Or maybe it’s necessary to understand that in our human nature there are some hidden wings, and that’s why everyone wants to fly, sometimes you even feel the place of attachment of the wings on your shoulders, it seems to be itching here, sometimes it’s so clear in a dream we all fly. Is it not from this sense of winged freedom that we, natural passionate hunters, also emerge? But where did this feeling of joy among hunters come from, so tangible?

So you ride a boat at night in dampness, and sometimes you even get chilly, you shiver from the cold, and behind your back every feather on your wings trembles with joy. You meet the dawn with a gun in your hand on your island.

Meanwhile, it got warmer, and the water quickly began to increase. It is also noticeable at dawn that when I sat down at night, there was a large dark circle of earth around the hut, and now there is a patch of land left from all this land. Of course, you really don’t want to part with the wings of joy, you think - a comrade, of course, settled down somewhere close here, also on an island, and he will understand by himself: when the water is greatly increased, he will come for you.

You can calm yourself down with different thoughts, but the water is inexorable, inevitable, the water itself, according to its own rules, slowly creeps and crawls, and now my piglet has disappeared, the water is already coming to the boots, and from all the great joy of life winged joy remains alone that the boots are still rubber and high!

Little by little it becomes so that you can’t take your eyes off the water, and then you begin to understand these mice swimming towards you, water rats climbing onto the branches of your hut, and it seems then that they all whisper to the implacable water:

"Church me!"

Suddenly, the decoy duck took off, the whole drake, painted with bright colors, flopped into the water, the wings of freedom again flew up behind its back ...

But while you were rejoicing at this, there was still more water, and now the water rats are sitting on the branches next to you, and after that drake, the comrade thought that it means that everything is fine if the hunter shoots.

Shout out?

Then the wind blew just from the direction where you need to shout.

And different animals swim, they rise higher and higher, the decoy duck is getting blacker and blacker from the insects pressing on it.

It’s a shame to say, but how not to say, if it was true: there was this sin, then it also broke out of the man’s tongue along with everyone else:

"Church me!"

Therefore, now it’s so shameful that he lost his mind for a short time and, like any animal surrounded by water, surrendered to his fate:

"Church me!"

It happens that a wolf puppy rolls over on its belly when a greyhound catches up with it. And he, too, is left with only this:

"Church me!"

The same thing happens with a bear, they say, when a person is under his nose, whispering his own: “Stay away from me!” - pretends to be dead and lies motionless. They say that this “mind” sometimes helps, and the bear moves away ...

So it was with me: I heard the splash of an oar, a boat appeared in the distance, and behind my shoulders again itched the place where hunters sometimes feel their wings.

Fortunately, Vygor on the Sukhona lowland is so high that it is never flooded with water, and Manuilo would never have done that to leave the children to the will of the water. Soon, a barge hauler from the timber exchange arrived on a boat, making his way between the logs, and told that Manuilo had said by phone from Verkhnyaya Toima: he should guard the paddock there, and the children would either wait at the exchange for the steamer, or, if they were not afraid, they would tie the raft and they would have sailed slowly towards it: it would seem that the water would just bring them to the Upper Toima itself.

Mitrasha, without thinking for a long time, decided to sail as soon as possible to Manuila, and until the evening he helped him knit a reliable raft from floating logs.

The work was finished only towards evening, and then the barge hauler looked at the children and thought and thought about something for a long time.

And if you want, - he said at last, - I’ll give you my boat, and somehow I’ll make my way to my place on a raft. Uncle Manuilo, I know he won't be in debt later.

Well, what do you think, - asked Mitrasha, - nothing bad will happen to us if we sail on a raft?

Also nothing if you are not afraid: you never know we float on rafts. You can cook, warm yourself by the fire, by the nudya, and on the boat, as you sat down, sit and tremble!

Let's sail, Nastya, on a raft! Mitrasha decided. And the burlak cheered up, and he kept repeating:

Well, if you want on a boat, well, take it, Uncle Manuilo is not like that, take it!

Thank you, thank you! Mitrasha and Nastya repeated.

And the barge hauler was still cheerful, already sitting in the boat, setting off, he kept repeating:

What do I care, I’ll move on a raft, if necessary, take a boat!

So he sailed away, and after him, towards evening, voices rose on the floodplain, how many voices, and all the voices repeated the same thing for some time: the last word barge hauler.

Take it, take it!

It happens strangely and so surprisingly that when you think very hard about something and then a cock crows somewhere nearby, it seems that this cock has caught your last word from what you were thinking about, and cries out to the whole world.

And then there was Mitrasha, that the whole floodplain, thousands of marsh birds picked up one word, and everyone repeats in their own way:

Take it, take it!

And I must say - it does not just happen to people when you begin to recognize your words in bird voices. This happens when some new conjecture comes up to a person, his own new thought.

It happens with all of us - some new thought of your own will come, and you will suddenly guess about something, you will discover it yourself. That's when for some reason it seems to you: everyone in the world is delighted with this, and even in the crow of a rooster you can hear this kind of thought in his own way.

So it was with Mitrasha in the hut at the dawn of the evening: he suddenly guessed ...

It was just before falling asleep in the warmth under the hay. Mitrash was already seeing off all the voices on the floodplain, familiar and unfamiliar, and his beloved humpbacked horse galloped, clattering with his hoof, through the hard air. All around the sky, along the horizon, the muttering of black grouse began, a lullaby for the whole world.

It was then that at the last minute before falling asleep, a guess came into Mitrasha's head, illuminating his entire Soul.

Later it seems to yourself that this conjecture has been asking you for a long time already and more than once knocked on the door of your soul, but for some reason you did not let it in. Another time you even want to tear your hair on your head, you blame yourself for it so much that you didn’t guess in time. In the end, it seems that it was not she who slowed down, but that he was to blame: he did not guess.

In the meantime, it does not end, it seems as if the thought itself is looking for you, and it finds you. The time will come, and she will certainly find you, and you will not go anywhere from this thought.

Mitrasha had this thought about that Ship thicket where their father had gone. This thought, now completely clear, complete, suddenly pushed Mitrasha at the moment of falling asleep, and she was so big that she didn’t fit right in herself, just as sometimes water under a drop doesn’t fit in a bucket: there wasn’t enough space in herself!

Nastya! he said, are you awake? Do you know what I'm thinking?

No, - answered Nastya, - I don’t know, but what?

That's what! Our father is the one, remember, the one who spoke to Manuel about the true truth.

Who was with him in the hospital? - exclaimed Nastya, rising from the bed. And then, sitting:

I've been thinking about this for a long time, but I didn't dare to say something...

I thought all the time too, and for some reason did not dare to say this to myself: somehow, like in a fairy tale, everything worked out ...

Now I know: of course, it was true - my father, wounded with a sore arm, lay in the infirmary, and a tree fell on Manuila, and he was taken to the same infirmary. They met there and talked about the true truth.

Little of! And that ship thicket and there is the very Thicket where the father went! for some important work!

And all this way, and along the way the Wolf's tooth, and the Crow's heel, and all this on the way to the father.

Do you remember what this river is called?

I think Koda.

Their two rivers, they are sisters: Koda and Loda.

Do you remember, the starling there somewhere on the same path in the old chapel serves for the deacon?

But then, somewhere near the camp hut, where Manuyla's path begins, there is a pond, and the fish Vyun lives in it?

Two fish: Vyun and Karas.

Do you remember that he also said...

No: that's the most important thing, why didn't he, so good and smart, guess that we are the children of his friend?

It seems to me, - answered Mitrasha, - he sometimes guessed: for so long he looked at me, then at you. And soon after, he figured it out.

I also think so, - answered Nastya, - at times he guessed, and we interfered with him before our eyes: now, like us, he guessed!

If he had guessed!

So in the conversation the children approached something big, the simplest and so overwhelming for them to solve, that they suddenly fell silent.

Some kind of great thought about the truth, passing into the understanding of people among themselves, some kind of conjecture about the truth of understanding people among themselves, was here in the air and could not enter the heads of these children.

This conjecture was most likely about some great truth of understanding people among themselves: isn’t it true that if only a little more attention, and they would now be with Manuila, as with a father, and he would simply bring them to their father. Now, if everything, everything was so, and everything in the world would be ours, and we would all be like one person!

Is it not here that this thought, common to the whole world, matured, ripening, changing? Maybe the children passed here near some word where the whole world walks, but cannot name the word ... What is this word?

But this was far from what the children thought in the way they now want to say about it: they were drawn somewhere far away, into the unknown, and it seemed that the solution to everything was there, and not here, near them, in the simple understanding of a loved one.

Do you hear, Nastya, - Mitrasha said quietly, - it seems to me that a little humpbacked horse gallops through the air and thumps with its hooves ...

I hear how it crumbles, - Nastya answered. - And what is it?

My father didn't know that either, - Mitrasha answered. - And is there such a person who knows everything, - he added, thinking.

Is it necessary to know everything?

How not necessary! Mitrasha answered with displeasure.

It was as if someone far and high, flying in the sky, said quite humanly:

Mitrasha listened and said:

Let's get out!

And they got out of the hut right under the stars above the great spring flood.

How many sounds there were, how many mysteries hovered, and above all this, occasionally repeating, something asked:

Mitrasha froze in an attempt to guess, but suddenly realized that this sound was repeated, passing along some invisible trail straight from south to north. And when he attacked the trail of a creature flying from south to north, he remembered his father on the hunt and Nastya said:

This heron is flying to the nesting grounds, to the north!

So he remembered his father.

But Nastya didn’t care that it was flying and who asked it. She thought only of her father: it was a terrible pity that they had missed Manuila, but now they were on the right track, and if only her father were alive, if only he did not fall ill, otherwise now they would certainly find him.

The main characters of M. Prishvin's fairy tale "Ship Thicket" are a taiga resident Vasily Veselkin and a hunter named Manuilo. From childhood, Vasya Veselkin tried to figure out what the truth is. The forester Antipych told him that there is only one truth for all, true truth. Even Antipych said that the truth has no words, that it is all in deeds. The old forester liked to repeat that one should not pursue happiness one by one, but should all together pursue the truth.

Once Antipych, together with Vasya, was choosing a pine tree that would be suitable for making plywood. In the area where they lived, only one such pine tree remained. It was tall, its trunk was even, without a single knot, and only a few people could grasp this pine at once.

Antipych noted with regret that this was the last such pine in these places. But then he told Vasya that in the north, in the Komi region, in the unmeasured forests, there is a reserved Ship Bowl, in which such pines stand so densely that a dead tree cannot fall to the ground. Local residents protect this thicket from prying eyes and consider this place a shrine.

Many years later. The old forester died, and Vasily Veselkin took his place. He got married, and now his daughter Nastya and son Mitrash were growing up. When did the Great Patriotic War, Vasily Veselkin went to the front. There he was seriously wounded in the right arm and ended up in the hospital. The doctors wanted to amputate his hand, but Vasily managed to persuade them not to do this.

In the hospital, Vasily met a forest hunter named Manuilo. The hunter was from the banks of the Pinega River. Manuilo told Veselkin that they did not want to accept him on the collective farm along with their hunting grounds. Vasily advised him to go to Moscow, to Kalinin. Manuilo decided to follow his advice.

From the forest hunter, Vasily again heard about the unusual Ship thicket. Veselkin decided that such a quantity of high-quality forest could benefit the state, and after being discharged from the hospital, he set off in search of this protected area, enlisting the support of the authorities. Before that, he sent a letter to his family, about whose life he knew nothing.

And there was trouble at home. Vasily Veselkin's wife received news that her husband had died and died of grief. Children, Mitrasha and Nastya, remained orphans. Having received a letter from their father, they decided to go in search of him and went by train to Vologda, from where they could get to Pinega.

In Vologda they had the good fortune to meet Manuilo, who had already been to Moscow, to Kalinin's, and was on his way to his native place. It so happened that Manuilo did not understand that Mitrasha and Nastya were the children of his hospital friend Veselkin. But still, he took them with him, deciding to help the orphans find their father.

They set off on rafts. During this trip, which took place in early spring, Manuila had to part with her children due to urgent work on rafting timber. Their paths diverged. Mitrasha and Nastya decided to continue their search on their own, with the help of everyone who came across along the way.

Meanwhile, Vasily Veselkin successfully reached the Ship Thicket. Possessing an assertive character and striving to achieve the triumph of true truth, he persuaded local residents sign papers with consent to cutting down the protected forest.

But Vasily did not know that the war would soon end and that there was no longer such an urgent need to cut down the Ship Thicket for the needs of the front. However, Manuilo knew about the imminent end of the war. During a meeting with Kalinny, he spoke about Veselkin's intention to cut down the reserved forest for the benefit of the state. Kalinin did not support this idea and said that protected forests should be protected. He gave Manuila documents confirming the need to preserve the Ship Thicket and asked Veselkin to catch up in order to stop the destruction of the reserve.

Due to problems with the rafting of the timber, Manuilo was forced to delay and was almost late for the start of the felling. But he managed in time, and on the way he caught up with Mitrasha and Nastya. Soon a meeting of all the main characters took place in the Ship thicket. Vasily Veselkin met with his children, preparations for deforestation were stopped, and Ship Thicket remained unscathed.

Takovo summary fairy tales.

The main idea of \u200b\u200bPrishvin's story-tale "Ship thicket" is that the true truth is where the greatest benefit comes from for all people. Vasily Veselkin was right in his own way when he urged people to give the Ship Thicket for the needs of the front. But he did not know that the war was ending, and that for the upcoming peacetime, the preservation of the reserved forest was more important. state task. It was possible to save the forest thanks to the hunter Manuila, who managed to visit one of the first persons of the state and enlisted his support.

The story-tale "Ship thicket" teaches to be persistent in achieving the goal. Mitrasha and Nastya, left without a mother, decided to find their father, who was lost in the remote taiga. Many trials fell to their lot, but the children managed to achieve their goal and found their father.

In the story-tale, I liked the main characters: Vasily Veselkin, his children, Nastya and Mitrasha, the hunter Manuilo. They sincerely love nature and take good care of it, realizing that the forest is their home. Adults sincerely worry about the results of the case.

What proverbs are suitable for Prishvin's story-tale "Ship Thicket"?

Seven times measure cut once.
A rolling stone gathers no moss.
Do not chase happiness alone, but chase the truth together.

“Ship thicket” - this phrase is familiar to many from school: this is the name of the philosophical tale of Mikhail Prishvin, last story famous Soviet writer. But not everyone knows that the prototype of the "Ship Thicket" was real place, relic Pinery on the border of the Komi Republic and the Arkhangelsk region, which impressed the writer so much that the story, inspired by a visit to this place, became one of the most famous, key works in his work.

Eighty years after Prishvin's expedition, a group of photographers and journalists went through the protected thickets of the Komi Republic to test in practice the route developed by the Komi tourism agency and try to understand why the writer was so struck by the northern forest.

The total length of the route is 385 kilometers. The practically abandoned gravel-concrete road ends 176 kilometers from Usogorsk with a kind of monument to human civilization, like a setting for a science fiction film in the post-apocalyptic genre. Further - only on foot.

On foot - to Chasha and back - you have to walk about 40 kilometers. We quickly delve into the untrodden taiga. The sun seems to be playing with us, looking out from behind the trunks of 20-meter fir trees, under our feet - swamps and thickets of horsetail.

By the standards of city walks, 40 kilometers is not so much, but in the wild Komi wilds, the speed of movement is no more than a kilometer per hour, or even less if you have to make your way through swampy areas. There are no footpaths, there is a map, a compass and an approximate direction.

The path is blocked by windfalls - spaces with trees felled by the wind. It feels like you are following in the footsteps of the heroes of the “Ship Thicket”: “Everyone who walked through the spruce forest knows that the roots of the Christmas tree do not sink into the ground, but lie flat, as if on a platter. Horned fir-trees defend themselves from the windblow only by the fact that one protects the other. But no matter how you protect it, the wind knows its way and knocks down trees without counting. Trees often fall on the path. Climbing a tree is difficult ... "

“An unprecedented spectacle opened up when we reached the top of the hill ( note: sluda is a toponym denoting slope, mountain): rather rare middle-aged pines stood on a tablecloth of white moss, almost greenish<…>And here is a green stripe on the white: it was once a tree that fell and long later gave life on white green moss, ”the writer tells about the hike along northern forest in their diaries.

Closer to the goal, at the end of the second day of the journey, white, “deer” moss, which is mentioned more than once in Prishvin’s notes, is found more and more often, the spruce forest becomes thicker and higher, but this pleases - the swamps are over, it remains just to wade more often with backpacks and overcome windfalls.

The fact that we are on the right track is also confirmed by hunting passes - signs of tribal affiliation, which were often cut down on trees, marking the boundaries of hunting grounds. Our guide, Morozov Alexander Reomidovich, demonstrates passes cut down about a hundred years ago.

“The banner of another person on the rossoshine means: do not go to my wind, to my heel, to my axe. This is the law we have in Suzem: don’t go on my ax again, ”our other guide, the well-known local historian Dina Ivanovna Chuprova, quotes Prishvin’s lines from memory. Another hunting pass - the crow's heel - is repeatedly mentioned in "Ship more often": "Two short shirts are two fingers of a crow's heel, the third is a finger and a leg in one long shirt."

If you look carefully around, you can also find other hunting signs - for example, a rusted trap nailed to a tree more than one decade ago.

There were only a few kilometers left to the Chasha. On the approaches we are met by a hunting hut, and, a little further, an old barn - a squat building made of logs, as if descended from the pages of a fairy tale.

It is difficult to say how old this barn is; on the roof, a layer of moss reaches a thickness of 15-20 centimeters. It was in these places that Onesimus, the hero of the “Ship Thicket”, the keeper of the reserved forest, could well live: “It so happened in the Komi region that someone very elderly, who had lost the strength to work in the family, went to the Ringing Sich and lived there.”

The last obstacle on the way to the Thicket. Windblows, which had to be overcome throughout the journey,
played into our hands here. If a fallen tree had not been encountered on the way, one would have to ford the not too wide, but stormy and rather cool Poch, a tributary of the Mezen.

The spruce jungle ends quite unexpectedly, and huge pine trees - 30-40 meters each - open up to the eye. Understanding immediately comes - here it is, the famous Prishvin Ship Thicket. Because of the purity and High Quality pine trees and called this thicket Korabelnaya - the possibility of using a unique forest for the needs of shipbuilding and aviation industry. Fortunately, the Thicket has been preserved, and in 1989, shortly after visiting these places by the famous journalist Oleg Larin, together with the director of the Ertom Forestry Nikolai Kovrizhnykh, More often was given the status of a botanical reserve.

“The trees there are so clean that there are no knots to a great height, and under the trees there is white deer moss, and also clean and warm: you get on your knees - and it only crunches and you will be like on a carpet. Then it seems to a person that these trees, rising to the sun, lift him with them.

40-meter 500-year-old pines go up into the sky, and carpets of white moss spread underfoot.

"Carpets" of the reserved forest are separate story: while admiring the natural ornaments under your feet, you can easily forget yourself and get lost between centennial pines.

You have to move very carefully through the protected forest - you are afraid to accidentally touch a mushroom or catch a bush with berries.

Mushrooms and placers of berries are literally at every step here.

It is worth looking at the pine trees going into the sky for tens of meters, and you understand why Prishvin was so impressed by this place. “The thicket of the ship is of such strength and beauty that each tree to pick is tree to tree so often that which one should fall, fall and cannot: lean against another and stand as if alive.”

There is very little time for a walk through more often - we move forward on the way back,

carefully so as not to disturb the delicate balance of this place, stepping through the fields of moss and mushrooms.

The general impression of the Ship Thicket, especially after a long wander through the Komi taiga and swamps: this place literally glows, a feeling of calmness and harmony overwhelms you here.

The way back is again two dozen kilometers through the taiga and windblows in pouring rain.

Wandering through the bolts, you understand that the Ship Thicket, unfortunately (although, perhaps, fortunately), is not suitable for tourism. To attract travelers, you need to do great job, you need at least some semblance of ecopaths and parking lots, if tourists appear, caretakers and guides will also be needed. In the meantime, the Thicket remains impregnable, almost untouched by civilization, a pine oasis among the wild Komi forests.

The trip to Korabelnaya Thicket was organized by the Komi tourism agency with the support of the administration of the Udora district, the Komiaviatrans company and the organizer of tourist routes in the region - Udory Necklace LLC.

Mikhail Mikhailovich Prishvin left extensive long-term diaries for fifty years of his life. The writer worked on them with the same care as on his other works of art. Brief entry The diary was often the material at the birth of a new work, but at the same time, these entries have an independent artistic and biographical value.

The book "Eyes of the Earth" was created from the diaries of 1946-1950. It is a collection of thoughts presented in aphoristic or poetic figurative form.

Also included in the book is the story-tale "Ship Thicket".

Mikhail Mikhailovich Prishvin
The eyes of the earth. ship thicket

eyes of the earth

All my way was from loneliness to people.

The thought flashes to give up everything superfluous, the car, guns, dogs, photography and only deal with making ends meet, that is, write a book about yourself with all your diaries.

I speak about myself not for myself: I recognize other people and nature by myself, and if I put "I", then this is not my household "I", but a production "I", no less different from my individual "I", than if I said "we".

My "I" in the diary should be the same as in a work of art, that is, look into the mirror of eternity, always act as the winner of the current time.

As for immodest antics with an intimate life, it is possible to figure out what exactly is in the world and what is on the table only from the outside. And there is also a special courage of the artist not to listen to this voice from outside. Let me take JJ as an example. Rousseau: if he listened to this voice, we would not have "Confessions".

I can give countless such examples.

road to a friend

1946

Looking for a place to build a nest.

In Porechye

Yesterday in the morning winter rushed with frost and wind, disturbed the calm alternation of identical mild days. But in the middle of the day a rich sun appeared, and everything was tamed.

In the evening again the air after the frost and the sun were like summer on glaciers.

Tomorrow we are going to Porechye, near Zvenigorod, the recreation center of the Academy of Sciences.

At 9 o'clock we left Moscow and arrived at 11, well, as we had not dreamed of. Quiet, warm and large snow fell all day.

Day flashed

What a day yesterday sparkled! As if the beauty came "dazzling beauty." We became quiet, reduced, and, screwing up our eyes, looked at our feet. Only in the ravine in the shade, the trees dared to look up at all the white in the blue shadows.

The night was starry, and the day came cloudy, and thank God, otherwise you can’t cope with the sparkling March day, and not you, but he becomes your master.

Birches are chilly

quiet snow

They say about silence: "Quieter than water, lower than grass." But what could be quieter than falling snow! It snowed all day yesterday, and as if it brought silence from heaven.

What silence, what grace, as if you yourself feel the beneficent growth of your understanding of life, touching such a height where there are no winds, silence does not pass.

live tree

It is especially good to look at the back of the Christmas tree against the sun.

river under the snow

warm glade

How everything calms down when you retire into the forest, and finally the sun on a clearing protected from the wind sends rays, softening the snow.

The starlings have arrived

The morning is clear as golden glass. Zaberezhi are growing, and it is already clear that the ice lies on the water and rises imperceptibly to the eye.

There are starlings on the trees in Dunin, and small birds - tap dances have flown in, in a multitude they sit and sing.

But it happens that one person crawled through, and this trail will remain, no one will walk along it anymore, and a snowstorm will notice it so much that no trace will remain.

Such is our share on earth: and it happens that we work the same way, but happiness is different.

Delighted man

The dawn is softer than the cheek of a baby, and in silence it falls inaudibly and rarely and evenly drops a drop on the balcony ... From the depths of the soul, an admiring person rises and comes out with a greeting to a flying bird: "Hello, dear!" And she answers him.

She greets everyone, but only an admiring person understands the bird's greeting.

Birch juice

The evening is warm and quiet, but there were no woodcocks. Dawn was sound-intensive.

My old thoughts all fled, like ice on a river - there is sap in a birch.

Popular in category: