Control dictations for the second half of the year. Bezhin Meadow Bezhin Meadow was a beautiful July day

03.03.2020

Bezhin meadow

On such a precise day I once hunted black grouse in the Chernsky district, Tula province. I found and shot quite a lot of game; the filled game bag mercilessly cut my shoulder; but already the evening dawn was fading, and in the air, still bright, although no longer illuminated by the rays of the setting sun, cold shadows began to thicken and spread, when I finally decided to return to my home. With quick steps I passed a long "square" of bushes, climbed a hill and, instead of the expected familiar plain with an oak forest to the right and a low white church in the distance, I saw completely different places, unknown to me. At my feet stretched a narrow valley; Directly opposite, a dense aspen forest rose like a steep wall. I stopped in bewilderment, looked around ... “Hey! - I thought, - yes, I didn’t get there at all: I took too much to the right, - and, marveling at my mistake, I quickly went down the hill. An unpleasant, motionless dampness immediately seized me, as if I had entered a cellar; thick tall grass at the bottom of the valley, all wet, white as an even tablecloth; It was kind of scary to walk on it. I quickly climbed out to the other side and went, taking to the left, along the aspen forest. Bats were already hovering over its dormant tops, mysteriously circling and trembling in a vaguely clear sky; a belated hawk flew briskly and straight up in the air, hurrying to its nest. “As soon as I get to that corner,” I thought to myself, “there will now be a road, and I gave a hook a mile away!”

I finally reached the corner of the forest, but there was no road there: some unmowed, low bushes spread wide in front of me, and behind them, far, far away, I could see a deserted field. I stopped again. “What a parable?.. But where am I?” I began to remember how and where I went during the day ... “Eh! Yes, these are Parahinskiye bushes! I exclaimed at last, “Exactly! this must be Sindeevskaya grove ... But how did I come here? So far?.. Strange!” Now you have to turn right again."

I went to the right, through the bushes. Meanwhile the night drew near and grew like a thundercloud; it seemed that together with the evening vapors, darkness rose from everywhere and even poured from the heights. I came across some non-torn, overgrown path; I walked along it, carefully looking ahead. All around quickly blackened and subsided, - only the quail occasionally screamed. A small night bird, inaudibly and low rushing on its soft wings, almost bumped into me and timidly dived to the side. I went out to the edge of the bushes and wandered along the boundary of the field. Already I could hardly distinguish distant objects; the field was vaguely white all around; behind it, advancing with every moment, gloomy darkness rose in huge clubs. My footsteps reverberated through the freezing air. The pale sky began to turn blue again - but that was already the blue of the night. The stars twinkled, stirred on it.

What I had taken for a grove turned out to be a dark and round mound. "Yes, where am I?" I repeated aloud again, stopped for the third time and looked inquiringly at my English yellow-piebald dog Dianka, decidedly the smartest of all four-legged creatures. But the smartest of four-legged creatures only wagged her tail, blinked her tired eyes dejectedly, and did not give me any practical advice. I felt ashamed in front of her, and I desperately rushed forward, as if I suddenly guessed where I should go, rounded the hillock and found myself in a shallow, plowed hollow all around. A strange feeling immediately took possession of me. This hollow had the appearance of an almost regular cauldron with gently sloping sides; at the bottom of it stood several large, white stones—it seemed as if they had slipped down there for a secret conference—and before that it was mute and deaf in it, the sky hung over it so flat, so despondently, that my heart sank. Some animal squeaked weakly and plaintively between the stones. I hurried back to the hillock. Until now, I still did not lose hope of finding my way home; but then I was finally convinced that I was completely lost, and, no longer trying in the least to recognize the surrounding places, almost completely drowned in the mist, I walked straight ahead, according to the stars - at random ... For about half an hour I walked like this, moving my legs with difficulty. It seemed that I had never been in such empty places in my life: no light flickered anywhere, no sound was heard. One gently sloping hill gave way to another, fields stretched endlessly after fields, bushes seemed to suddenly rise from the ground in front of my very nose. I kept walking and was about to lie down somewhere until morning, when suddenly I found myself over a terrible abyss.

I quickly pulled back my outstretched leg and, through the barely transparent twilight of the night, I saw a vast plain far below me. A wide river skirted it in a semicircle leaving me; steely reflections of water, occasionally and vaguely flickering, indicated its course. The hill on which I was suddenly descended in an almost sheer cliff; its huge outlines separated, blackening, from the bluish airy void, and right below me, in the corner formed by that cliff and plain, near the river, which in this place stood as a motionless, dark mirror, under the very steep of the hill, each other burned and smoked with a red flame. there are two lights near the friend. People swarm around them, shadows wavered, sometimes the front half of a small curly head was brightly lit ...

I finally found out where I went. This meadow is famous in our suburbs under the name Bezhina Meadows ... But there was no way to return home, especially at night; my legs wobbled beneath me from exhaustion. I decided to go up to the lights and, in the company of those people whom I took for herdsmen, to wait for dawn. I descended safely, but before I had time to let go of the last branch I grabbed, when suddenly two large, white, shaggy dogs, barking viciously, rushed at me. Children's sonorous voices resounded around the lights; two or three boys got up quickly from the ground. I answered their questioning cries. They ran up to me, immediately recalled the dogs, who were especially struck by the appearance of my Dianka, and I went up to them.

I was mistaken in mistaking the people who were sitting around those fires for the crowds. They were simply peasant children from neighboring villages who guarded the herd. In the hot summer season, horses are driven out from us at night to feed in the field: during the day, flies and gadflies would not give them rest. To drive the herd out before evening and bring in the herd at dawn is a great holiday for peasant boys. Sitting without hats and in old sheepskin coats on the liveliest nags, they rush with a cheerful whooping and shouting, dangling their arms and legs, jumping high, laughing loudly. Light dust rises in a yellow column and rushes along the road; a friendly clatter echoes far, the horses run with their ears pricked up; in front of everyone, with his tail up and constantly changing legs, gallops some red-haired cosmic man, with a burdock in a tangled mane.

I told the boys that I was lost and sat down next to them. They asked me where I was from, kept silent, stepped aside. We talked a little. I lay down under a gnawed bush and began to look around. The picture was wonderful: near the lights, a round reddish reflection trembled and seemed to freeze, resting against the darkness; the flame, flashing, occasionally threw quick reflections beyond the line of that circle; a thin tongue of light licks the bare branches of the vine and vanishes at once; sharp, long shadows, bursting in for a moment, in turn reached the very lights: darkness fought with light. Sometimes, when the flame burned weaker and the circle of light narrowed, a horse’s head suddenly emerged from the approaching darkness, bay, with a winding blaze, or all white, attentively and stupidly looked at us, deftly chewing the long grass, and, sinking again, immediately disappeared. All you could hear was how she continued to chew and snort. From a lighted place it is difficult to see what is going on in the dark, and therefore everything seemed to be covered with an almost black veil up close; but farther to the sky, hills and forests were dimly visible in long spots. The dark clear sky stood solemnly and immensely high above us with all its mysterious splendor. My chest was sweetly embarrassed, inhaling that special, lingering and fresh smell - the smell of a Russian summer night. Almost no noise was heard all around ... Only occasionally in a nearby river with a sudden sonority would a big fish splash and the coastal reeds would faintly rustle, barely shaken by the oncoming wave ... Only the lights crackled softly.

The boys sat around them; the two dogs who so wanted to eat me were sitting right there. For a long time they could not come to terms with my presence and, squinting sleepily and sideways at the fire, occasionally growled with an extraordinary sense of their own dignity; at first they growled, and then they squealed slightly, as if regretting the impossibility of fulfilling their desire. There were five boys in all: Fedya, Pavlusha, Ilyusha, Kostya and Vanya. (From their conversations I learned their names and I intend to introduce them to the reader right now.)

The first, the eldest of all, Fedya, you would give fourteen years. He was a slender boy, with handsome and thin, slightly small features, curly blond hair, bright eyes and a constant half-joyful, half-scattered smile. He belonged, by all indications, to a wealthy family and went out into the field not out of need, but just for fun. He wore a colorful cotton shirt with a yellow border; a small new coat, put on in a sledgehammer, barely rested on his narrow coat hanger; a comb hung from a pigeon belt. His low-top boots were like his boots, not his father's. The second boy, Pavlusha, had unkempt, black hair, gray eyes, broad cheekbones, a pale, pockmarked face, a large but regular mouth, a huge head, as they say, the size of a beer cauldron, a squat, clumsy body. The little one was unsightly - what can I say! - and yet I liked him: he looked very intelligent and direct, and there was strength in his voice. He could not show off his clothes: they all consisted of a simple sackcloth shirt and patched ports. The face of the third, Ilyusha, was rather insignificant: hawk-nosed, elongated, short-sighted, it expressed some kind of dull, sickly solicitude; his clenched lips did not move, his knitted eyebrows did not diverge - he seemed to squint from the fire. His yellow, almost white hair stuck out in sharp plaits from under a low felt cap, which he kept pulling down over his ears with both hands. He was wearing new bast shoes and onuchi; a thick rope, twisted three times around his waist, carefully pulled together his neat black coat. Both he and Pavlusha looked no more than twelve years old. The fourth, Kostya, a boy of about ten, aroused my curiosity with his thoughtful and sad eyes. His whole face was small, thin, freckled, pointed down like a squirrel's; lips could hardly be distinguished; but a strange impression was produced by his large, black eyes, shining with a liquid brilliance: they seemed to want to express something, for which there were no words in the language - in his language at least - there were no words. He was of small stature, puny build, and rather poorly dressed. The last one, Vanya, I didn't even notice at first: he was lying on the ground, quietly crouching under the angular matting, and only occasionally sticking his blond curly head out from under it. This boy was only seven years old.

So, I lay under a bush to the side and looked at the boys. A small cauldron hung over one of the fires; “potatoes” were boiled in it, Pavlusha watched him and, kneeling, poked a chip into the boiling water. Fedya lay leaning on his elbow and spreading the flaps of his coat. Ilyusha was sitting next to Kostya and still squinting intently. Kostya lowered his head a little and looked off into the distance. Vanya did not move under his matting. I pretended to be asleep. Slowly the boys started talking again.

First they chatted about this and that, about tomorrow's work, about horses; but suddenly Fedya turned to Ilyusha and, as if resuming an interrupted conversation, asked him:

- Well, and what did you see the brownie?

“No, I didn’t see him, and you can’t even see him,” Ilyusha answered in a hoarse and weak voice, the sound of which perfectly matched the expression on his face, “but I heard ... Yes, and I’m not alone.

- Where does he live with you? Pavlusha asked.

- Do you go to the factory?

- Well, let's go. My brother, Avdyushka, and I are fox workers.

- You see - factory! ..

"Well, how did you hear him?" Fedya asked.

- That's how. I had to with my brother Avdyushka, and with Fyodor Mikheevsky, and with Ivashka Kosy, and with another Ivashka from Krasnye Holmy, and even with Ivashka Sukhorukov, and there were other children there; there were ten of us guys - as there is a whole shift; but we also had to spend the night in the roller-roller, that is, not that we had to, but Nazarov, the overseer, forbade it; says: “What, they say, you guys should go home; there is a lot of work tomorrow, so you guys don’t go home.” So we stayed and lay all together, and Avdyushka began to say that, they say, guys, well, how will the brownie come? .. And he, Avdey, had no time to say, when suddenly someone came over our heads; but we were lying downstairs, and he came upstairs, by the wheel. We hear: he walks, the boards under him bend and crack; here he went through our heads; the water suddenly rustles along the wheel, rustles; knocks, knocks the wheel, spins; but the screen savers at the palace are lowered. We wonder: who raised them, that the water went; but the wheel turned, turned, and it did. He again went to the door upstairs and began to go down the stairs, and that way he obeyed, as if in no hurry; the steps under him even groan like that ... Well, he came up to our door, waited, waited - the door suddenly flew open all of a sudden. We were alarmed, we looked - nothing ... Suddenly, lo and behold, at one vat the uniform stirred, rose, dipped, looked like, looked like that way through the air, as if someone was rinsing it, and again back into place. Then, at another vat, the hook was taken off the nail and back on the nail; then it was as if someone went to the door and suddenly coughed, how he suffocated, like some kind of sheep, but so loudly ... We all fell down in a heap, crawled under each other ... Oh, how scared we were at that time!

- See how! Paul said. - Why did he cough?

- I do not know; maybe from dampness.

Everyone was silent.

- And what, - Fedya asked, - are the potatoes boiled?

Pavlusha felt them.

- No, more cheeses ... Look, splashed, - he added, turning his face in the direction of the river, - it must be a pike ... And there a little star rolled.

“No, I’ll tell you something, brothers,” Kostya began in a thin voice, “listen, the other day what my aunt was telling me in front of me.

“Well, let’s listen,” Fedya said with a patronizing air.

"You know Gavrila, the suburban carpenter, don't you?"

- Well, yes; we know.

“Do you know why he is so gloomy, everything is silent, you know? That's why he's so unhappy. Once he went, my aunt said, - he went, my brothers, into the forest for nuts. So he went into the forest for nuts, and he got lost; went - God knows where he went. Already he walked, walked, my brothers - no! can't find the way; and the night is outside. So he sat down under a tree; Come on, they say, I'll wait for the morning, - sat down and dozed off. Here he dozed off and suddenly hears someone calling him. Looks - no one. He dozed off again - they call again. He again looks, looks: and in front of him on a branch a mermaid sits, sways and calls him to her, and she herself dies with laughter, laughs ... And the moon shines strongly, so strongly, the moon clearly shines - everything, my brothers, is visible. So she calls him, and she’s all fair, white, sitting on a branch, like some kind of plotichka or gudgeon, - otherwise crucian carp can be so whitish, silver ... Gavrila the carpenter froze, my brothers, but you know she laughs yes he is all calling to him by hand. Gavrila already got up, he was about to obey the mermaid, my brothers, yes, to know, the Lord advised him: he put a cross on himself ... And how difficult it was for him to lay a cross, my brothers; he says, the hand is just like a stone, does not toss and turn ... Oh, you are such, ah! her hair is green, like your hemp. So Gavrila looked, looked at her, and began to ask her: “Why are you crying, you forest potion?” And the mermaid somehow says to him: “If you didn’t get baptized, he says, man, you would live with me in fun until the end of days; but I cry, I am hurt because you were baptized; Yes, I will not be the only one to be killed: be killed also you until the end of days. Then, my brothers, she disappeared, and Gavrila immediately understood how he should get out of the forest, that is, to get out ... But since then he has been walking around sadly.

- Eka! - Fedya said after a short silence, - but how can such a forest evil spirits spoil the Christian soul, - he didn’t listen to her?

- Yes, there you go! Kostya said. - And Gavrila bailed that her voice, they say, was so thin, plaintive, like that of a toad.

Did your dad tell you this himself? Fedya continued.

- Myself. I lay on the floor, I heard everything.

- It's a wonderful thing! Why should he be sad? .. And, to know, she liked him, that she called him.

- Yes, I liked it! Ilyusha picked it up. - How! She wanted to tickle him, that's what she wanted. It's their business, these mermaids.

“But there should be mermaids here, too,” Fedya remarked.

- No, - answered Kostya, - this place is clean, free. One is the river is close.

Everyone fell silent. Suddenly, somewhere in the distance, a drawn-out, ringing, almost groaning sound was heard, one of those incomprehensible nocturnal sounds that sometimes arise amidst deep silence, rise, stand in the air and slowly spread at last, as if dying away. You listen - and as if there is nothing, but it rings. It seemed that someone shouted for a long, long time under the very sky, someone else seemed to respond to him in the forest with thin, sharp laughter, and a weak, hissing whistle rushed along the river. The boys looked at each other, shuddered ...

- The power of the cross is with us! Ilya whispered.

- Oh, you crows! Pavel shouted. - What are you excited about? Look, the potatoes are cooked. (Everyone moved closer to the cauldron and began to eat the steaming potatoes; Vanya alone did not move.) What are you doing? Pavel said.

But he did not crawl out from under his mat. The cauldron was soon empty.

“Did you guys hear,” Ilyusha began, “what happened the other day at Varnavitsy?”

- On the dam? Fedya asked.

- Yes, yes, on the dam, on the broken one. What an unclean place, so unclean, and so deaf. All around are such gullies, ravines, and in the ravines all kazyuli are found.

- Well, what happened? say...

“That's what happened. You, perhaps, Fedya, do not know, but only there we have a drowned man buried; and he drowned a long time ago, as the pond was still deep; only his grave is still visible, and even that is barely visible: so - a bump ... Here, the other day, the clerk of the kennel Yermila is calling; says: "Go, they say, Yermil, to the post office." Yermil always goes to the post office with us; he killed all his dogs: for some reason they don’t live with him, they never lived, but he’s a good kennel, he took everything. So Yermil went for the mail, and he hesitated in the city, but he was drunk on his way back. And the night, and the bright night: the moon is shining ... So Yermil rides through the dam: such is his road. He goes that way, the dog-seller Yermil, and he sees: the drowned man has a lamb on the grave, white, curly, pretty, pacing. So Yermil thinks: "I'll take him with this - why should he disappear like that," and he got down, and took him in his arms ... But the lamb - nothing. Here Yermil goes to the horse, and the horse stares at him, snores, shakes his head; however, he rebuked her, sat on her with a lamb and rode again: he was holding a lamb in front of him. He looks at him, and the lamb looks right into his eyes. He felt terrible, Yermil, the kennel: that they say, I don’t remember that rams looked into someone’s eyes like that; however nothing; he began to stroke his wool like that, - he says: “Byasha, byasha!” And the ram suddenly shows his teeth, and he too: "Byasha, byasha ..."

Before the narrator had time to utter this last word, both dogs suddenly got up at once, with convulsive barking rushed away from the fire and disappeared into the darkness. All the boys were scared. Vanya jumped out from under his matting. Pavlusha rushed after the dogs with a cry. Their barking quickly moved away ... The restless running of the alarmed herd was heard. Pavlusha shouted loudly: “Grey! Bug!..” After a few moments, the barking stopped; Paul's voice came already from afar... A little more time passed; the boys looked at each other in bewilderment, as if waiting for something to happen ... Suddenly there was a clatter of a galloping horse; she stopped abruptly at the very fire, and, clinging to the mane, Pavlusha nimbly jumped off it. Both dogs also jumped into the circle of light and immediately sat down, sticking out their red tongues.

– What is there? what? the boys asked.

“Nothing,” Pavel replied, waving his hand at the horse, “the dogs smelled something. I thought it was a wolf,” he added in an indifferent voice, breathing quickly with all his chest.

I involuntarily admired Pavlusha. He was very good at that moment. His ugly face, animated by his fast ride, burned with bold prowess and firm determination. Without a twig in his hand, at night, he, without the slightest hesitation, rode alone against the wolf ... "What a glorious boy!" I thought as I looked at him.

“Did you see them, or something, wolves?” asked the coward Kostya.

“There are always a lot of them here,” Pavel answered, “but they are restless only in winter.

He crouched again in front of the fire. Sitting down on the ground, he dropped his hand on the furry nape of one of the dogs, and for a long time the overjoyed animal did not turn its head, looking sideways at Pavlusha with grateful pride.

Vanya again huddled under the matting.

“And what fears you told us, Ilyushka,” said Fedya, who, as the son of a rich peasant, had to be the leader (he himself spoke little, as if afraid to lose his dignity). - Yes, and the dogs here are not easily pulled to bark ... And for sure, I heard that this place is unclean with you.

- Varnavitsy? .. Of course! what an unclean thing! There, more than once, they say, they saw the old gentleman - the late gentleman. He walks, they say, in a long-brimmed caftan and all this groans like that, looking for something on the ground. Once Grandfather Trofimych met him: “What, they say, father, Ivan Ivanovich, would you like to look for on earth?”

Did he ask him? interrupted the astonished Fedya.

Yes, I asked.

- Well, well done after that Trofimych ... Well, and what about that one?

- Gap-grass, he says, I'm looking for. - Yes, he speaks so deafly, deafly: - Gap-grass. - And what do you need, father Ivan Ivanovich, gap-grass? - Presses, he says, the grave presses, Trofimych: I want to get out, get out ...

- Look what! - Fedya noticed, - it’s not enough to know, he lived.

- What a miracle! Kostya said. - I thought you could only see the dead on parental Saturday.

“You can see the dead at any hour,” Ilyusha picked up with confidence, who, as far as I could see, knew all rural beliefs better than others ... “But on parental Saturday you can see a living one, for whom, that is, in that year it’s the turn die. One has only to sit down at night on the church porch and look at the road. Those will go past you along the road, to whom, that is, to die in that year. Here, last year, Baba Ulyana went to the porch.

Well, did she see anyone? Kostya asked with curiosity.

- How. First of all, she sat for a long, long time, she didn’t see or hear anyone ... only everything seemed to be barking like a dog, barking somewhere ... Suddenly, she looks: a boy in one shirt is walking along the path. She liked - Ivashka Fedoseev is coming ...

“The one who died in the spring?” interrupted Fedya.

- The same one. He walks and does not raise his little head... And Ulyana recognized him... But then she looks: the woman is walking. She peers, peers, - oh, you, Lord! - she walks along the road, Ulyana herself.

– Really itself? Fedya asked.

- By God, by myself.

Well, she's not dead yet, is she?

- It hasn't been a year yet. And you look at her: what keeps the soul.

Everyone was quiet again. Pavel threw a handful of dry branches on the fire. They turned black sharply on the suddenly flashing flame, crackled, smoked and began to warp, lifting the burnt ends. The reflection of the light hit, trembling impetuously, in all directions, especially upwards. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a white dove flew right into this reflection, shyly turned around in one place, all bathed in a hot brilliance, and disappeared, ringing its wings.

“I know, I’ve strayed from home,” Pavel remarked. - Now it will fly, as long as it stumbles upon something, and where it poke, it will spend the night there until dawn.

- And what, Pavlusha, - said Kostya, - didn’t this righteous soul fly to heaven, eh?

Pavel threw another handful of branches on the fire.

“Maybe,” he finally said.

“But tell me, Pavlusha,” Fedya began, “did you also see heavenly foresight in Shalamovo?”

How can you not see the sun? How.

“Tea, are you scared too?”

- We're not alone. Our master, hosha, told us ahead of time that, they say, there would be a foresight for you, but as soon as it got dark, he himself, they say, got so scared that he would. And in the yard hut, the woman-cook, so as soon as it got dark, you hear, she took and broke all the pots in the oven with a fork: “Whoever eats now, she says, the end of the world has come.” So shti flowed. And in our village, brother, there were such rumors that, they say, white wolves would run across the earth, people would be eaten, a bird of prey would fly, or even Trishka himself would be seen.

- What is this Trishka? Kostya asked.

- Do not you know? - Ilyusha picked it up with warmth. - Well, brother, you don’t know Trishka, do you? Sidneys are sitting in your village, that's for sure Sidneys! Trishka - this will be such an amazing person who will come; but he will come when the end times come. And he will be such an amazing person that it will be impossible to take him, and nothing will be done to him: he will be such an amazing person. If the peasants want to take it, for example; they will come out at him with a cudgel, cordon him off, but he will avert their eyes - he will avert their eyes so that they themselves will beat each other. They will put him in prison, for example, - he will ask for some water to drink in a ladle: they will bring him a ladle, and he will dive there, and remember your name. Chains will be put on him, and he will tremble in his hands - they fall off him like that. Well, this Trishka will walk around the villages and cities; and this Trishka, a sly man, will seduce the Khrestian people ... well, nothing will be done for him ... He will be such an amazing, sly person.

“Well, yes,” Pavel continued in his unhurried voice, “like that. This is what we were waiting for. The old people said that, they say, as soon as the foreknowledge of heaven begins, so Trishka will come. This is where the prediction began. He poured all the people out into the street, into the field, waiting for what will happen. And here, you know, the place is prominent, free. They look - all of a sudden, from the settlement, some kind of person comes down the mountain, so tricky, his head is so amazing ... Everyone shouts: “Oh, Trishka is coming! oh, Trishka is coming!” - but who where! Our elder climbed into the ditch; the old woman is stuck in the doorway, screaming with a good obscenity, her own door dog is so frightened that she is off the chain, and through the wattle fence, and into the forest; and Kuzka's father, Dorofeyich, jumped into the oats, sat down, and let's shout like a quail: "Perhaps, they say, at least the enemy, the murderer, will take pity on the bird." Everyone was so alarmed! .. And the man was our cooper, Vavila: he bought himself a new jug and put an empty jug on his head and put it on.

All the boys laughed and fell silent again for a moment, as often happens with people talking in the open air. I looked around: the night stood solemnly and regal; the damp freshness of the late evening was replaced by midnight dry warmth, and for a long time it was to lie in a soft canopy on the sleeping fields; there was still a lot of time left before the first babble, before the first rustles and rustles of the morning, before the first dewdrops of dawn. The moon was not in the sky: at that time it rose late. Countless golden stars seemed to be quietly flowing, vying with each other, flickering, in the direction of the Milky Way, and, right, looking at them, you seemed to vaguely feel the impetuous, unstoppable run of the earth ...

A strange, sharp, painful cry suddenly rang out twice in a row over the river and, after a few moments, was repeated further ...

Kostya shuddered. "What is it?"

“It’s a heron screaming,” Pavel objected calmly.

“Heron,” repeated Kostya ... “What is it, Pavlusha, I heard last night,” he added, after a pause, “perhaps you know ...

– What did you hear?

“That's what I heard. I walked from the Stone Ridge to Shashkino; but at first he walked through our hazel, and then he went through the meadow - you know, where it goes with a blight, - there is a buchilo there; you know, it's still overgrown with reeds; so I went past this thump, my brothers, and suddenly from that thrashing someone groaned, so pitifully, pitifully: woo ... woo ... woo! Such a fear took me, my brothers: the time is late, and the voice is so sick. So, it seems that he himself would cry ... What would it be? es?

“Thieves drowned Akim the forester in this buchil last summer,” Pavlusha remarked, “perhaps his soul is complaining.

- But even then, my brothers, - objected Kostya, widening his already huge eyes ... - I didn’t even know that Akim was drowned in that bucha: I wouldn’t be so frightened yet.

“And then, they say, there are such tiddly frogs,” Pavel continued, “that scream so plaintively.

- Frogs? Well, no, these are not frogs ... what are they ... (The heron again shouted over the river.) Ek her! - Kostya involuntarily said, - he screams like a goblin.

“Goblin doesn’t scream, he’s dumb,” Ilyusha picked up, “he only claps his hands and cracks ...

- And you saw him, the devil, or what? Fedya interrupted him mockingly.

- No, I didn’t see it, and God save him to see; but others have seen it. Just the other day, he walked around our peasant: he drove, drove him through the forest, and all around the same clearing ... He barely made it home to the light.

Well, did he see him?

- Saw. He says that this one stands big, big, dark, shrouded, as if behind a tree, you can’t make out well, as if hiding from the month, and looks, looks with eyes, blinks them, blinks ...

- Oh you! exclaimed Fedya, shuddering slightly and shrugging his shoulders, “pfu!..

- And why did this trash get divorced in the world? Pavel noted. “I don’t understand, right!

“Don’t scold, look, he will hear,” Ilya remarked.

There was silence again.

“Look, look, guys,” Vanya’s childish voice suddenly rang out, “look at God’s stars, that the bees are swarming!”

He pushed his fresh little face out from under the bast mat, leaned on his fist, and slowly raised his large, quiet eyes upwards. The eyes of all the boys rose to the sky and did not soon fall.

- And what, Vanya, - Fedya spoke affectionately, - is your sister Anyutka healthy?

“Healthy,” Vanya replied, burping slightly.

- You tell her - that she is to us, why does not she go? ..

- I do not know.

- You tell her to go.

- You tell her that I will give her a present.

- Will you give it to me?

- I'll give you one too.

Vanya sighed.

- Well, no, I don't need to. Give it to her, she's so kind with us.

And Vanya again laid his head on the ground. Pavel got up and took the empty cauldron in his hand.

- Where are you going? Fedya asked him.

- To the river, to scoop up water: I wanted to drink some water.

The dogs got up and followed him.

- Don't fall into the river! Ilyusha called after him.

Why would he fall? - said Fedya, - he will beware.

- Yes, be careful. Anything can happen: he will bend down, begin to draw water, and the waterman will grab him by the hand and drag him to him. Then they will begin to say: fell, they say, a small one into the water ... And what kind of fell? .. Over there, climbed into the reeds, ”he added, listening.

The reeds, moving apart, “rustled”, as we say.

“Is it true,” Kostya asked, “that Akulina the fool has gone crazy ever since she was in the water?”

- Since then ... What is now! But as they say, before the beauty was. The merman ruined it. I know, I did not expect that she would be pulled out soon. Here he is, there at his bottom, and spoiled it.

(I myself have met this Akulina more than once. Covered in rags, terribly thin, with a face as black as coal, a clouded look and eternally bared teeth, she tramples for hours in one place, somewhere on the road, tightly pressing her bony hands to her chest and slowly waddling from one foot to the other, like a wild animal in a cage, she does not understand anything, no matter what anyone says to her, and only occasionally convulsively laughs.)

“But they say,” Kostya continued, “the reason why Akulina rushed into the river was that her lover had deceived her.

- From the same one.

- Do you remember Vasya? Kostya added sadly.

- Which Vasya? Fedya asked.

- But the one that drowned, - answered Kostya, - in this one in the river itself. What a boy it was! and-them, what a boy was! His mother, Feklista, how she loved him, Vasya! And as if she, Feklista, sensed that death would happen to him from the water. It used to happen that Vasya would go with us, with the guys, in the summer to swim in the river - she would tremble all over. Other women are fine, they walk past with troughs, roll over, and Feklista puts the trough on the ground and starts calling him: “Come back, they say, come back, my little light! oh, come back, falcon!" And how he drowned. The Lord knows. He played on the bank, and his mother was right there, raking hay; suddenly he hears, as if someone were blowing bubbles on the water - look, but only one Vasya's little hat is floating on the water. After all, since then Feklista has not been in his right mind: he will come and lie down in the place where he drowned; she lies down, my brothers, and she sings a song - remember, Vasya used to sing such a song - so she sings it, and she cries, cries, bitterly pities God ...

“But Pavlusha is coming,” said Fedya.

Pavel approached the fire with a full cauldron in his hand.

“What, guys,” he began after a pause, “there’s something wrong.

- And what? Kostya hastily asked.

Everyone was so startled.

- What are you, what are you? murmured Kostya.

- By God. As soon as I began to bend down to the water, I suddenly heard Vasya’s voice call me that way and, as if from under the water: “Pavlusha, and Pavlusha!” I'm listening to; and he again calls: "Pavlusha, come here." I walked away. However, he scooped up water.

- Oh, my God! oh you, Lord! the boys said, crossing themselves.

- After all, it was the waterman who called you, Pavel, - Fedya added ... - And we just talked about him, about Vasya.

“Ah, this is a bad omen,” Ilyusha said with an emphasis.

- Well, nothing, let it go! - Pavel said decisively and sat down again, - you will not escape your fate.

The boys quieted down. It was obvious that Paul's words made a deep impression on them. They began to lay down in front of the fire, as if about to sleep.

- What is it? Kostya suddenly asked, raising his head.

Pavel listened.

- These are the Easter cakes flying, whistling.

- Where are they flying?

- And where, they say, winter does not happen.

Is there such a land?

- Long away?

- Far, far, beyond the warm seas.

Kostya sighed and closed his eyes.

More than three hours have passed since I joined the boys. The moon has risen at last; I did not immediately notice it: it was so small and narrow. This moonless night, it seemed, was still as magnificent as before ... But already many stars, which until recently stood high in the sky, were already leaning towards the dark edge of the earth; everything was completely quiet all around, as usual everything calms down only towards morning: everything slept in a strong, motionless, pre-dawn sleep. The air no longer smelled so strongly - dampness seemed to be spreading in it again ... Short summer nights! .. The conversation of the boys faded away along with the lights ... The dogs even dozed off; the horses, as far as I could distinguish, in the slightly glimmering, weakly pouring light of the stars, also lay with their heads bowed ... Sweet oblivion attacked me; it passed into slumber.

A fresh stream ran down my face. I opened my eyes: the morning was beginning. The dawn had not yet blushed anywhere, but it was already turning white in the east. Everything became visible, although vaguely visible, all around. The pale gray sky grew lighter, colder, bluer; the stars now twinkled with a faint light, then disappeared; the earth was damp, the leaves were sweating, in some places living sounds, voices began to be heard, and a thin, early breeze had already begun to roam and flutter over the earth. My body responded to him with a light, cheerful shiver. I quickly got up and walked over to the boys. They all slept like the dead around a smoldering fire; Pavel alone raised himself halfway up and looked intently at me.

I nodded my head to him and went home along the smoky river. Before I had gone two versts, it was already pouring all around me over a wide wet meadow, and in front, over green hills, from forest to forest, and behind me along a long dusty road, through sparkling, crimson bushes, and along a river bashfully blue from under the thinning mist—at first scarlet, then red, golden streams of young, hot light poured down... Everything stirred, woke up, sang, rustled, spoke. Large drops of dew blushed everywhere like radiant diamonds; towards me, clean and clear, as if also washed by the morning coolness, the sounds of a bell came, and suddenly a rested herd rushed past me, driven by familiar boys ...

Unfortunately, I must add that in the same year Paul passed away. He did not drown: he killed himself by falling off his horse. Too bad, he was a nice guy!

We didn't talk to each other, we even tried not to look at each other.

Ducks hovered over our heads; others were going to sit down beside us, but suddenly they rose up, as they say, “with a stake”, and flew away with a cry. We

They started to ossify. Suchok blinked his eyes as if he were going to sleep.
Finally, to our indescribable joy, Yermolai returned.
- Well?
- Was on the beach; found a ford... Let's go.
We wanted to leave at once; but first he took a rope from his pocket under water, tied the dead ducks by their legs, took both ends in his teeth and

Wandered forward; Vladimir is behind him, I am behind Vladimir. The knot closed the procession. There were about two hundred steps to the shore, Yermolai walked boldly and non-stop

(he noticed the road so well), only occasionally shouting: “Left, - there is a pothole on the right!” or: “To the right, - here you will get stuck to the left ...” Sometimes water

It reached our throats, and once or twice poor Twig, being shorter than all of us, choked and blew bubbles. "Well well well!" yelled at him menacingly

Yermolai, - and Suchok climbed, dangled his legs, jumped and still got out to a shallower place, but even in extreme cases he did not dare to grab onto the floor

My coat. Exhausted, dirty, wet, we finally reached the shore.
Two hours later we were all sitting, as dried as possible, in the big hay shed and getting ready to have supper. Coachman Yehudiel, man

Extremely slow, heavy on his feet, reasonable and sleepy, he stood at the gate and diligently regaled Bitch with tobacco. (I noticed that the coachmen

In Russia, they make friends very soon.) Suchok sniffed furiously, to the point of nausea: he spat, coughed, and, apparently, felt great pleasure.

Vladimir took on a languid air, tilted his head to one side and spoke little. Yermolai wiped our guns. Dogs twirled with exaggerated speed

Tails in anticipation of oatmeal; the horses stomped and neighed under the shed... The sun was setting; its last rays scattered in wide crimson stripes;

Golden clouds spread across the sky smaller and smaller, like a washed, combed wave ... Songs were heard in the village.

Bezhin meadow

It was a beautiful July day, one of those days that only happens when the weather has settled for a long time. From early morning the sky

It's clear; the morning dawn does not burn with fire: it spreads with a gentle blush. The sun is not fiery, not incandescent, as during a sultry drought, not

Dull-purple, as before a storm, but bright and welcomingly radiant - peacefully emerges under a narrow and long cloud, shines freshly and plunges into

Its purple mist. The upper, thin edge of the stretched cloud will sparkle with snakes; their brilliance is like the brilliance of forged silver ... But here again

Playing rays - and merrily and majestically, as if taking off, a mighty luminary rises. Around noon, there are usually many round

High clouds, golden gray, with delicate white edges. Like islands scattered along an endlessly overflowing river, flowing around them deeply

Transparent sleeves of even blue, they hardly budge; further, towards the sky, they move, crowd, the blue between them is no longer

See; but they themselves are as azure as the sky: they are all permeated through and through with light and warmth. The color of the sky, light, lavender, not

It changes throughout the day and is the same all around; nowhere does it get dark, the thunderstorm does not thicken; unless in some places bluish stripes stretch from top to bottom: then

A light rain falls. By evening, these clouds disappear; the last of them, blackish and indefinite, like smoke, lie down in pink puffs

Opposite the setting sun; in the place where it set as calmly as it calmly ascended into the sky, a scarlet radiance stands for a short time over

Darkened earth, and, quietly blinking, like a carefully carried candle, the evening star will light up on it.

Summer is almost at its zenith, the time of hot sun and colorful flowering. Bright, varied, full of everything, it takes on hundreds of guises in the lines of different writers. Today I want to save a couple of book sunshine here, in the collection of inspiring quotes about summer: here thoughts and feelings are wrapped in words by talented masters of the word. Catch the sun!

In the coldest winter, I found out that inside me is an invincible summer.
(Albert Camus)

The morning was quiet, the city, shrouded in darkness, peacefully basked in bed. Summer came, and the wind was summer - the warm breath of the world, unhurried and lazy. One has only to get up, lean out the window, and you will immediately understand: here it begins, real freedom and life, here it is, the first morning of summer.
(Ray Bradbury)

There's something beautiful about summer
And with the summer, the beautiful in us.
(Sergey Yesenin)

The air is so fresh and tart that even the bitterness of young greenery is felt on the tongue. The beginning of summer, what more happiness can you wish for?
(Veronika Ivanova)

It was nice to feel the warm breath of the summer night over the hot sidewalks. It's like walking on a hard crust of freshly baked bread. Hot streams insinuatingly wrap around the legs, climb under the dress, cover the whole body ... It's nice!
(Ray Bradbury)

If you have ever been in the Småland forest in June on an early Sunday morning, you will immediately remember what this forest is like. You will hear how the cuckoo crows, and how the thrushes trill, as if playing a flute. You will feel how the coniferous path gently spreads under your bare feet and how the sun gently warms the back of your head. You walk and inhale the resinous smell of firs and pines, admire the white flowers of wild strawberries in the clearings. Emil walked through such a forest.
(Astrid Lindgren)

Summer reigned all around. Suddenly it became quite clear and yet stupefied. In the long winter, you always have time to forget that summer is magic.
(Maria Gripe)

Take summer in your hand, pour summer into a glass - into the smallest one, of course, from which you will only take a single tart sip; bring it to your lips - and instead of a fierce winter, a hot summer will run through your veins ...
(Ray Bradbury)

Summer was coming; Jim and I couldn't wait for him. It was our favorite time: in the summer you sleep in a cot on the back porch covered with mosquito nets, or even try to sleep in a sycamore house; in the summer there are so many delicious things in the garden and everything around under the hot sun burns with thousands of bright colors ...
(Harper Lee)

It was a wonderful morning, as happens at the end of spring or, if you like it better, at the beginning of summer, when the delicate color of grass and leaves turns into brighter and richer tones and nature looks like a beautiful girl, seized with a vague trembling of awakening femininity.
(Jerome K. Jerome)

In the dewy grass, red strawberry lights lit up from the sun. I bent down, took with my fingers a slightly rough berry, still only scorched from one side, and carefully lowered it into the tube. My hands smelled of the forest, the grass, and that bright dawn that scattered across the sky.
(Victor Astafiev)

You came into my life as summer comes - suddenly, without warning, as the glare of sunlight penetrates the room in the morning.
(Mark Levy)

I have long forgotten what summer smells like. Before, everything was different: the smell of sea water and distant ship whistles, the touch of girlish skin and the lemon scent of hair, the twilight wind and timid hopes. Now summer has become a dream.
(Haruki Murakami)

I thought that in the summer the collective consciousness is strongest. We all remember the motive of the ice creamer's song, we all know how the metal of the children's slide heated in the sun burns the skin. We all lay on our backs with our eyes closed, feeling our eyelids throbbing and hoping that this day would be a little longer than the previous one, when in fact it is just the opposite.
(Jodi Picoult)

On a summer afternoon, everything seems to fall asleep in a stuffy haze, but as soon as a light breeze comes in, the green oak forests will speak, preening, the quiet river backwater will ripple, somewhere a tree will creak with an senile falsetto. And again - only the sleepy buzzing of bees and the clouds boiled with foam float in an endless string. Daytime heat reigns in a pine forest. White-dried moss crunches underfoot, sand burns on the mounds of the soles, and it’s good by the river! Coolness emanates from the tight river jets, bordered by sedge and yellow dots of water lilies. The river, like a life-giving artery, is filled with freshness and movement.
(Alexander Tokarev)

Summer is a furnace in which the Lord burns the magnificent colors of autumn.
(Heinrich Belle)

You might also be interested in the collection and , as well as the collection

I finally reached the corner of the forest, but there was no road there: some unmowed, low bushes spread wide in front of me, and behind them, far, far away, I could see a deserted field. I stopped again. “What a parable?.. But where am I?” I began to remember how and where I went during the day ... “Eh! Yes, these are Parahinskiye bushes! - I exclaimed at last, - exactly! this must be Sindeevskaya grove ... But how did I come here? So far?.. Strange!” Now you need to take it to the right again.

I went to the right, through the bushes. Meanwhile the night drew near and grew like a thundercloud; it seemed that together with the evening vapors, darkness rose from everywhere and even poured from the heights. I came across some non-torn, overgrown path; I walked along it, carefully looking ahead. Everything around quickly grew black and subsided, - only the quail occasionally screamed. A small night bird, inaudibly and low rushing on its soft wings, almost bumped into me and timidly dived to the side. I went out to the edge of the bushes and wandered along the boundary of the field. Already I could hardly distinguish distant objects; the field was vaguely white all around; behind it, advancing with every moment, gloomy darkness rose in huge clubs. My footsteps reverberated through the freezing air. The pale sky began to turn blue again - but that was already the blue of the night. The stars twinkled, stirred on it.

What I had taken for a grove turned out to be a dark and round mound. "Yes, where am I?" - I repeated aloud again, stopped for the third time and looked inquiringly at my English yellow-piebald dog Dianka, decidedly the smartest of all four-legged creatures. But the smartest of four-legged creatures only wagged her tail, blinked her tired eyes dejectedly, and did not give me any practical advice. I felt ashamed in front of her, and I desperately rushed forward, as if I suddenly guessed where I should go, rounded the hillock and found myself in a shallow, plowed hollow all around. A strange feeling immediately took possession of me. This hollow had the appearance of an almost regular cauldron with gently sloping sides; at the bottom of it stood several large, white stones—it seemed as if they had slipped down there for a secret conference—and before that it was mute and deaf in it, the sky hung over it so flat, so despondently, that my heart sank. Some animal squeaked weakly and plaintively between the stones. I hurried back to the hillock. Until now, I still did not lose hope of finding my way home; but here I was finally convinced that I was completely lost, and, no longer trying in the least to recognize the surrounding places, which were almost completely drowned in the mist, I walked straight ahead, according to the stars - at random ... For about half an hour I walked like this, with difficulty rearranging my legs. It seemed that I had never been in such empty places in my life: no light flickered anywhere, no sound was heard. One gently sloping hill gave way to another, fields stretched endlessly after fields, bushes seemed to suddenly rise from the ground in front of my very nose. I kept walking and was about to lie down somewhere until morning, when suddenly I found myself over a terrible abyss.

It was a beautiful July day, one of those days that only happens when the weather has settled for a long time. From early morning the sky is clear; the morning dawn does not burn with fire: it spreads with a gentle blush. The sun - not fiery, not hot, as during a sultry drought, not dull-purple, as before a storm, but bright and welcomingly radiant - peacefully rises under a narrow and long cloud, shines freshly and plunges into its purple fog. The upper, thin edge of the stretched cloud will sparkle with snakes; their brilliance is like the brilliance of forged silver... But now the playful rays gushed again, and the mighty luminary rises cheerfully and majestically, as if taking off. Around noon there usually appear many round high clouds, golden gray, with delicate white edges. Like islands scattered along an endlessly overflowing river flowing around them with deeply transparent sleeves of even blue, they hardly budge; further, towards the sky, they shift, crowd, the blue between them can no longer be seen; but they themselves are as azure as the sky: they are all permeated through and through with light and warmth. The color of the sky, light, pale lilac, does not change all day and is the same all around; nowhere does it get dark, the thunderstorm does not thicken; except in some places bluish stripes stretch from top to bottom: then a barely noticeable rain is sown. By evening, these clouds disappear; the last of them, blackish and indefinite as smoke, fall in rosy puffs against the setting sun; in the place where it set as calmly as it calmly ascended into the sky, a scarlet radiance stands for a short time over the darkened earth, and, quietly blinking, like a carefully carried candle, the evening star will light up on it. On such days the colors are all softened; light, but not bright; everything bears the stamp of some touching meekness. On such days the heat is sometimes very strong, sometimes even "floating" over the slopes of the fields; but the wind disperses, pushes the accumulated heat, and whirlwinds-circles - an undoubted sign of constant weather - walk like high white pillars along the roads through the arable land. In dry and clean air it smells of wormwood, compressed rye, buckwheat; even an hour before night you don't feel damp. The farmer wants such weather for harvesting grain ... On such a precise day I once hunted black grouse in the Chernsky district, Tula province. I found and shot quite a lot of game; the filled game bag mercilessly cut my shoulder; but already the evening dawn was fading, and in the air, still bright, although no longer illuminated by the rays of the setting sun, cold shadows began to thicken and spread, when I finally decided to return to my home. With quick steps I passed a long "square" of bushes, climbed a hill and, instead of the expected familiar plain with an oak forest to the right and a low white church in the distance, I saw completely different places, unknown to me. At my feet stretched a narrow valley; Directly opposite, a dense aspen forest rose like a steep wall. I stopped in bewilderment, looked around ... “Hey! - I thought, - yes, I didn’t get there at all: I went too far to the right, - and, marveling at my mistake, I quickly went down the hill. An unpleasant, motionless dampness immediately seized me, as if I had entered a cellar; thick tall grass at the bottom of the valley, all wet, white as an even tablecloth; It was kind of scary to walk on it. I quickly climbed out to the other side and went, taking to the left, along the aspen forest. Bats were already hovering over its dormant tops, mysteriously circling and trembling in a vaguely clear sky; a belated hawk flew briskly and straight up in the air, hurrying to its nest. “As soon as I get to that corner,” I thought to myself, “there will now be a road, but I gave a hook a mile away!” I finally reached the corner of the forest, but there was no road there: some unmowed, low bushes spread wide in front of me, and behind them, far, far away, I could see a deserted field. I stopped again. “What a parable?.. But where am I?” I began to remember how and where I went during the day ... “Eh! Yes, these are Parahinskiye bushes! I exclaimed at last, “exactly! That must be the Sindeevskaya grove over there... But how did I get here? So far?.. Strange! Now you need to take it to the right again. I went to the right, through the bushes. Meanwhile the night drew near and grew like a thundercloud; it seemed that together with the evening vapors, darkness rose from everywhere and even poured from the heights. I came across some non-torn, overgrown path; I walked along it, carefully looking ahead. All around quickly grew black and subsided—only the quails cried out from time to time. A small night bird, inaudibly and low rushing on its soft wings, almost bumped into me and timidly dived to the side. I went out to the edge of the bushes and wandered along the boundary of the field. Already I could hardly distinguish distant objects; the field was vaguely white all around; behind it, advancing with every moment, gloomy darkness rose in huge clubs. My footsteps reverberated through the freezing air. The pale sky began to turn blue again - but that was already the blue of the night. The stars twinkled, stirred on it. What I had taken for a grove turned out to be a dark and round mound. "Yes, where am I?" I repeated aloud again, stopped for the third time and looked inquiringly at my English yellow-piebald dog Dianka, decidedly the smartest of all four-legged creatures. But the smartest of four-legged creatures only wagged her tail, blinked her tired eyes dejectedly, and did not give me any practical advice. I felt ashamed in front of her, and I desperately rushed forward, as if I suddenly guessed where I should go, rounded the hillock and found myself in a shallow, plowed hollow all around. A strange feeling immediately took possession of me. This hollow had the appearance of an almost regular cauldron with gently sloping sides; several large white stones stuck upright at the bottom of it—it seemed as if they had slipped down there for a secret conference—and before that it was mute and deaf in it, the sky hung over it so flat, so dejectedly that my heart sank. Some animal squeaked weakly and plaintively between the stones. I hurried back to the hillock. Until now, I still did not lose hope of finding my way home; but here I finally became convinced that I was completely lost, and, no longer trying in the least to recognize the surrounding places, which were almost completely drowned in the mist, I walked straight ahead, according to the stars - at random ... For about half an hour I walked like this, moving my legs with difficulty. It seemed that I had never been in such empty places in my life: no light flickered anywhere, no sound was heard. One gently sloping hill gave way to another, fields stretched endlessly after fields, bushes seemed to suddenly rise from the ground in front of my very nose. I kept walking and was about to lie down somewhere until morning, when suddenly I found myself over a terrible abyss. I quickly pulled back my outstretched leg and, through the barely transparent twilight of the night, I saw a vast plain far below me. A wide river skirted it in a semicircle leaving me; steely reflections of water, occasionally and vaguely flickering, indicated its course. The hill on which I was suddenly descended in an almost sheer cliff; its huge outlines separated, blackening, from the bluish airy void, and right below me, in the corner formed by that cliff and plain, near the river, which in this place stood as a motionless, dark mirror, under the very steep of the hill, each other burned and smoked with a red flame. there are two lights near the friend. People swarm around them, shadows wavered, sometimes the front half of a small curly head was brightly lit ... I finally found out where I went. This meadow is famous in our suburbs under the name of Bezhina Meadows ... But there was no way to return home, especially at night; my legs wobbled beneath me from exhaustion. I decided to go up to the lights and, in the company of those people whom I took for herdsmen, to wait for dawn. I descended safely, but before I had time to let go of the last branch I grabbed, when suddenly two large, white, shaggy dogs, barking viciously, rushed at me. Children's sonorous voices resounded around the lights; two or three boys got up quickly from the ground. I answered their questioning cries. They ran up to me, immediately recalled the dogs, who were especially struck by the appearance of my Dianka, and I went up to them. I was mistaken in mistaking the people who were sitting around those fires for the crowds. They were simply peasant children from neighboring villages who guarded the herd. In the hot summer season, horses are driven out from us at night to feed in the field: during the day, flies and gadflies would not give them rest. Driving the herd out before evening and bringing in the herd at dawn is a great feast for peasant boys. Sitting without hats and in old sheepskin coats on the liveliest nags, they rush with a cheerful whooping and shouting, dangling their arms and legs, jumping high, laughing loudly. Light dust rises in a yellow column and rushes along the road; a friendly clatter echoes far, the horses run with their ears pricked up; in front of everyone, with his tail up and constantly changing his leg, some red-haired kosmach, with a burdock in a tangled mane, gallops. I told the boys that I was lost and sat down next to them. They asked me where I was from, kept silent, stepped aside. We talked a little. I lay down under a gnawed bush and began to look around. The picture was wonderful: near the lights, a round reddish reflection trembled and seemed to freeze, resting against the darkness; the flame, flashing, occasionally threw quick reflections beyond the line of that circle; a thin tongue of light licks the bare branches of the vine and vanishes at once; sharp, long shadows, bursting in for a moment, in turn reached the very lights: darkness fought with light. Sometimes, when the flame burned weaker and the circle of light narrowed, a horse’s head suddenly emerged from the approaching darkness, bay, with a winding blaze, or all white, attentively and stupidly looked at us, deftly chewing the long grass, and, sinking again, immediately disappeared. All you could hear was how she continued to chew and snort. From a lighted place it is difficult to see what is happening in the darkness, and therefore everything seemed to be covered with an almost black veil; but farther to the sky, hills and forests were dimly visible in long spots. The dark clear sky stood solemnly and immensely high above us with all its mysterious splendor. His chest was sweetly embarrassed, inhaling that special, lingering and fresh smell - the smell of a Russian summer night. Almost no noise was heard all around ... Only occasionally in a nearby river with a sudden sonority would a big fish splash and the coastal reeds would faintly rustle, barely shaken by the oncoming wave ... Only the lights crackled softly. The boys sat around them; the two dogs who so wanted to eat me were sitting right there. For a long time they could not come to terms with my presence and, squinting sleepily and sideways at the fire, occasionally growled with an extraordinary sense of their own dignity; at first they growled, and then they squealed slightly, as if regretting the impossibility of fulfilling their desire. There were five boys in all: Fedya, Pavlusha, Ilyusha, Kostya and Vanya. (From their conversations I learned their names and I intend to introduce them to the reader right now.) The first, the eldest of all, Fedya, you would give fourteen years. He was a slender boy, with handsome and thin, slightly small features, curly blond hair, bright eyes and a constant half-joyful, half-scattered smile. He belonged, by all indications, to a wealthy family and went out into the field not out of need, but just for fun. He wore a colorful cotton shirt with a yellow border; a small new coat, put on in a sledgehammer, barely rested on his narrow coat hanger; a comb hung from a pigeon belt. His low-top boots were like his boots, not his father's. The second boy, Pavlusha, had unkempt, black hair, gray eyes, broad cheekbones, a pale, pockmarked face, a large but regular mouth, a huge head, as they say, the size of a beer cauldron, a squat, clumsy body. The little one was unsightly - what can I say! - and yet I liked him: he looked very intelligent and direct, and there was strength in his voice. He could not show off his clothes: they all consisted of a simple sackcloth shirt and patched ports. The face of the third, Ilyusha, was rather insignificant: hawk-nosed, elongated, short-sighted, it expressed some kind of dull, sickly solicitude; his clenched lips did not move, his knitted eyebrows did not diverge—he seemed to squint from the fire. His yellow, almost white hair stuck out in sharp plaits from under a low felt cap, which he kept pulling down over his ears with both hands. He was wearing new bast shoes and onuchi; a thick rope, twisted three times around his waist, carefully pulled together his neat black coat. Both he and Pavlusha looked no more than twelve years old. The fourth, Kostya, a boy of about ten, aroused my curiosity with his thoughtful and sad eyes. His whole face was small, thin, freckled, pointed down like a squirrel's: his lips could hardly be distinguished; but a strange impression was produced by his large, black, gleaming eyes with a liquid gleam: they seemed to want to express something for which there were no words in the language—in his language, at least. He was of small stature, puny build, and rather poorly dressed. The last one, Vanya, I didn't even notice at first: he was lying on the ground, quietly crouching under the angular matting, and only occasionally sticking his blond curly head out from under it. This boy was only seven years old. So, I lay under a bush to the side and looked at the boys. A small cauldron hung over one of the fires; "potatoes" were cooked in it. Pavlusha watched him and, kneeling, poked a splinter into the boiling water. Fedya lay leaning on his elbow and spreading the flaps of his coat. Ilyusha was sitting next to Kostya and still squinting intently. Kostya lowered his head a little and looked off into the distance. Vanya did not move under his matting. I pretended to be asleep. Slowly the boys started talking again. First they chatted about this and that, about tomorrow's work, about horses; but suddenly Fedya turned to Ilyusha and, as if resuming an interrupted conversation, asked him: - Well, and what did you see the brownie? “No, I didn’t see him, and you can’t even see him,” Ilyusha answered in a hoarse and weak voice, the sound of which corresponded perfectly to the expression on his face, “but I heard ... Yes, and I’m not alone. — Where does he live with you? Pavlusha asked. — In an old roll. - Do you go to the factory? - Well, let's go. My brother, Avdyushka, and I are fox workers. - You see - factory! .. "Well, how did you hear him?" Fedya asked. - That's how. I had to with my brother Avdyushka, and with Fyodor Mikheevsky, and with Ivashka Kosy, and with another Ivashka from Krasnye Holmy, and even with Ivashka Sukhorukov, and there were other children there; all of us were about ten guys - as there is a whole shift; but we had to spend the night in the roller-roller, that is, not that we had to, but Nazarov, the overseer, forbade it; says: “What, they say, you guys should go home; there is a lot of work tomorrow, so you guys don’t go home.” So we stayed and lay all together, and Avdyushka began to say that, they say, guys, well, how will the brownie come? .. And he, Avdey-ot, did not have time to say, when suddenly someone came over our heads; but we were lying downstairs, and he came upstairs, by the wheel. We hear: he walks, the boards under him bend and crack; here he went through our heads; the water suddenly rustles along the wheel, rustles; knocks, knocks the wheel, spins; but the screensavers at the palace are lowered. We wonder: who raised them, that the water went; but the wheel turned, and turned, and it did. He went again to the door above and began to go down the stairs, and that way he goes down, as if in no hurry; the steps under him even groan like that... Well, he came up to our door, waited, waited - the door suddenly flew open all of a sudden. We were alarmed, we looked - nothing ... Suddenly, lo and behold, at one vat the uniform stirred, rose, dipped, looked like, looked like that way in the air, as if someone was rinsing it, and again it was in place. Then, at another vat, the hook was taken off the nail and back on the nail; then it was as if someone went to the door and suddenly coughed, how he choked, like some kind of sheep, but so loudly ... We all fell down in a heap, crawled under each other ... Oh, how scared we were at that time! - See how! Pavel said. - Why did he cough? - I do not know; maybe from dampness. Everyone was silent. - And what, - Fedya asked, - are the potatoes boiled? Pavlusha felt them. “No, more cheese… Look, it splashed,” he added, turning his face in the direction of the river, “it must be a pike… And there a little star rolled down. “No, I’ll tell you something, brothers,” Kostya began in a thin voice, “listen, the other day what my aunt was telling me in front of me. "Well, let's listen," Fedya said with a patronizing air. "You know Gavrila, the suburban carpenter, don't you?"- Well, yes; we know. “Do you know why he is so gloomy, everything is silent, you know? That's why he's so unhappy. He went once, my aunt said, - he went, my brothers, into the forest for nuts. So he went into the forest for nuts and got lost; went - God knows where he went. Already he walked, walked, my brothers - no! can't find the way; and the night is outside. So he sat down under a tree; Come on, they say, I'll wait for the morning, - sat down and dozed off. Here he dozed off and suddenly hears someone calling him. Looks - no one. He dozed off again - they called again. He again looks, looks: and in front of him on a branch a mermaid sits, sways and calls him to her, and she herself dies with laughter, laughs ... And the moon shines strongly, so strongly, the moon clearly shines - that's all, my brothers, it is seen. So she calls him, and she’s all bright, white herself, sitting on a branch, like some kind of plotichka or gudgeon - otherwise crucian carp can be so whitish, silver ... Gavrila the carpenter froze, my brothers, but she knows laughs and calls him all the way to her hand. Gavrila already got up, he was about to obey the mermaid, my brothers, yes, to know, the Lord advised him: he laid a cross on himself ... And how difficult it was for him to lay a cross, my brothers; he says, the hand is just like a stone, does not toss and turn ... Oh, you are such, ah! she wipes her hair, and her hair is green, like your hemp. So Gavrila looked, looked at her, and began to ask her: “Why are you crying, you forest potion?” And the mermaid somehow says to him: “If you didn’t get baptized, he says, man, you would live with me in fun until the end of days; but I cry, I am hurt because you were baptized; Yes, I will not be the only one to be killed: be killed also you until the end of days. Then, my brothers, she disappeared, and Gavrila immediately understood how he should get out of the forest, that is, to get out ... But since then he has been walking around sadly. — Eka! - Fedya said after a short silence, - but how can such a forest evil spirits spoil the Christian soul, - he didn’t listen to her? - Yes, there you go! Kostya said. - And Gavrila bailed that her voice, they say, was so thin, plaintive, like that of a toad. Did your dad tell you this himself? Fedya continued. - Myself. I lay on the floor, I heard everything. - Wonderful thing! Why should he be sad? .. And, to know, she liked him, that she called him. — Yes, I liked it! Ilyusha picked it up. — How! She wanted to tickle him, that's what she wanted. It's their business, these mermaids. “But there must be mermaids here, too,” Fedya remarked. “No,” answered Kostya, “this place is clean, free. One is the river is near. Everyone fell silent. Suddenly, somewhere in the distance, a drawn-out, ringing, almost groaning sound was heard, one of those incomprehensible nocturnal sounds that sometimes arise amidst deep silence, rise, stand in the air and slowly spread at last, as if dying away. You listen - and as if there is nothing, but it rings. It seemed that someone shouted for a long, long time under the very sky, someone else seemed to respond to him in the forest with a swampy, sharp laughter, and a weak, hissing whistle rushed along the river. The boys looked at each other, shuddered... The power of the cross is with us! Ilya whispered. - Oh, you crows! Pavel shouted, “what are you excited about? Look, the potatoes are cooked. (Everyone moved closer to the cauldron and began to eat the steaming potatoes; Vanya alone did not move.) What are you doing? Pavel said. But he did not crawl out from under his mat. The cauldron was soon empty. “Did you guys hear,” Ilyusha began, “what happened the other day at Varnavitsy?” - On the dam? Fedya asked. - Yes, yes, on the dam, on the broken one. What an unclean place, so unclean, and so deaf. All around are such gullies, ravines, and in the ravines all kazyuli are found. - Well, what happened? say... “Here's what happened. You, perhaps, Fedya, do not know, but only there we have a drowned man buried; and he drowned a long time ago, as the pond was still deep; only his grave is still visible, and even that is barely visible: so - a bump ... Here the clerk of the kennel Yermila is calling the other day; says: "Go, they say, Yermil, to the post office." Yermil always goes to the post office with us; he killed all his dogs: for some reason they don’t live with him, they never lived, but he’s a good kennel, he took everything. Here Yermil went for the mail, and he hesitated in the city, but he was already drunk on his way back. And the night, and the bright night: the moon is shining ... So Yermil rides through the dam: such is his road. He goes that way, the dog-seller Yermil, and he sees: the drowned man has a lamb on the grave, white, curly, pretty, pacing. So Yermil thinks: "I'll take him with this - why should he disappear like that," and he got down, and took him in his arms ... But the lamb - nothing. Here Yermil goes to the horse, and the horse stares at him, snores, shakes his head; however, he rebuked her, sat on her with a lamb and rode again: he was holding a lamb in front of him. He looks at him, and the lamb looks right into his eyes. He felt terrible, Yermil, the kennel: that, they say, I don’t remember that rams looked into someone’s eyes like that; however nothing; he began to stroke his wool like that, - he says: “Byasha, byasha!” And the ram suddenly shows his teeth, and he too: "Byasha, byasha ..." Before the narrator had time to utter this last word, both dogs suddenly got up at once, with convulsive barking rushed away from the fire and disappeared into the darkness. All the boys were scared. Vanya jumped out from under his matting. Pavlusha rushed after the dogs with a cry. Their barking quickly moved away ... The restless running of the alarmed herd was heard. Pavlusha shouted loudly: “Grey! Bug!..” After a few moments, the barking stopped; Paul's voice came already from afar ... A little more time passed; the boys looked at each other in bewilderment, as if waiting for something to happen... Suddenly there was a clatter of a galloping horse; she stopped abruptly at the very fire, and, clinging to the mane, Pavlusha nimbly jumped off it. Both dogs also jumped into the circle of light and immediately sat down, sticking out their red tongues. — What is there? what? the boys asked. “Nothing,” Pavel answered, waving his hand at the horse, “so the dogs sensed something. I thought it was a wolf,” he added in an indifferent voice, breathing quickly with all his chest. I involuntarily admired Pavlusha. He was very good at that moment. His ugly face, animated by his fast ride, burned with bold prowess and firm determination. Without a twig in his hand, at night, he, without the slightest hesitation, rode alone against the wolf ... "What a glorious boy!" I thought, looking at him. “Did you see them, or something, wolves?” asked the coward Kostya. “There are always a lot of them here,” Pavel answered, “but they are restless only in winter. He crouched again in front of the fire. Sitting down on the ground, he dropped his hand on the furry nape of one of the dogs, and for a long time the overjoyed animal did not turn its head, looking sideways at Pavlusha with grateful pride. Vanya again huddled under the matting. “And what fears you told us, Ilyushka,” said Fedya, who, as the son of a rich peasant, had to be the leader (he himself spoke little, as if afraid to lose his dignity). “Yes, and the dogs here are not easily pulled to bark ... And for sure, I heard that this place is unclean with you.” - Varnavitsy? .. Of course! what an unclean thing! There, more than once, they say, they saw the old master - the late master. He walks, they say, in a long-brimmed caftan and all this groans like that, looking for something on the ground. Once Grandfather Trofimych met him: “What, they say, father, Ivan Ivanovich, would you like to look for on earth?” Did he ask him? interrupted the astonished Fedya. Yes, I asked. - Well, well done after that Trofimych ... Well, and what about that one? - Gap-grass, he says, I'm looking for. Yes, he speaks so deafly, deafly: - gap-grass. - And what do you need, father Ivan Ivanovich, gap-grass? - Presses, he says, the grave presses, Trofimych: I want to get out, get out ... - Look what! Fedya remarked, “it’s not enough to know, he lived. - What a marvel! Kostya said. - I thought you could only see the dead on parental Saturday. “You can see the dead at any hour,” Ilyusha picked up with confidence, who, as far as I could see, knew all rural beliefs better than others ... turn to die. One has only to sit down at night on the church porch and look at the road. Those will go past you along the road, to whom, that is, to die in that year. Here, last year, Baba Ulyana went to the porch. Well, did she see anyone? Kostya asked with curiosity. — How. First of all, she sat for a long, long time, she didn’t see or hear anyone ... only everything seemed to be barking like a dog, barking somewhere ... Suddenly, she looks: a boy in one shirt is walking along the path. She liked - Ivashka Fedoseev is coming ... “The one who died in the spring?” interrupted Fedya. - The same one. He walks and does not raise his little head... And Ulyana recognized him... But then she looks: the woman is walking. She peered, peered - oh, you, Lord! - she walks along the road herself, Ulyana herself. — Really itself? Fedya asked.- Oh, my God, myself. Well, she's not dead yet, is she? - It hasn't been a year yet. And you look at her: what keeps the soul. Everyone was quiet again. Pavel threw a handful of dry branches on the fire. They turned black sharply on the suddenly flashing flame, crackled, smoked and began to warp, lifting the burnt ends. The reflection of the light hit, trembling impetuously, in all directions, especially upwards. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a white dove flew right into this reflection, shyly turned around in one place, bathed in a hot glow, and disappeared, ringing its wings. “I know, I’ve strayed from home,” Pavel remarked. - Now it will fly, as long as it stumbles upon something, and where it poke, it will spend the night there until dawn. “But what, Pavlusha,” Kostya said, “isn’t this righteous soul flying to heaven, eh?” Pavel threw another handful of branches on the fire. "Maybe," he finally said. “But tell me, Pavlusha,” Fedya began, “did you also see heavenly foresight in Shalamovo?” How can you not see the sun? How. “Tea, are you scared too?” - We're not alone. Our master, hosha, told us ahead of time that, they say, there would be a foresight for you, but as soon as it got dark, he himself, they say, got so scared that he would. And in the yard hut, the woman is a cook, so as soon as it got dark, you hear, she took and broke all the pots in the oven with a fork: “Whoever eats now, she says, the end of the world has come.” So shti flowed. And in our village, brother, there were such rumors that, they say, white wolves would run across the earth, people would be eaten, a bird of prey would fly, or even Trishka himself would be seen. - What is this Trishka? Kostya asked. - Do not you know? - Ilyusha picked it up with warmth, - well, brother, you’re otkenteleva that you don’t know Trishka? Sidneys are sitting in your village, that's for sure Sidneys! Trishka - this will be such an amazing person who will come; but he will come when the end times come. And he will be such an amazing person that it will be impossible to take him, and nothing will be done to him: he will be such an amazing person. If the peasants want to take it, for example; they will come out at him with a cudgel, cordon him off, but if he turns their eyes away, he will turn their eyes away so that they themselves will beat each other. They will put him in prison, for example, - he will ask for some water to drink in a ladle: they will bring him a ladle, and he will dive there, and remember your name. Chains will be put on him, and he will tremble in his hands - they fall off him like that. Well, this Trishka will walk around the villages and cities; and this Trishka, the cunning man, will seduce the Khrestian people ... well, nothing will be done for him ... He will be such an amazing, cunning person. “Well, yes,” Pavel continued in his unhurried voice, “like that. This is what we were waiting for. The old people said that, they say, as soon as the foreknowledge of heaven begins, so Trishka will come. This is where the prediction began. He poured all the people out into the street, into the field, waiting for what will happen. And here, you know, the place is prominent, free. They look - all of a sudden, from the suburbs, some kind of person comes down the mountain, so tricky, his head is so amazing ... Everyone shouts: “Oh, Trishka is coming! oh, Trishka is coming!” - but who where! Our elder climbed into the ditch; the old woman got stuck in the doorway, screaming with a good obscenity, she frightened her yard dog so much that she was off the chain, and through the wattle fence, and into the forest; and Kuzka's father, Dorofeyich, jumped into the oats, sat down, and let's shout like a quail: "Perhaps, they say, at least the enemy, the murderer, will take pity on the bird." Everyone was so alarmed! .. And the man was our cooper, Vavila: he bought himself a new jug and put an empty jug on his head and put it on. All the boys laughed and fell silent again for a moment, as often happens with people talking in the open air. I looked around: the night stood solemnly and regal; the damp freshness of the late evening was replaced by midnight dry warmth, and for a long time it was to lie in a soft canopy on the sleeping fields; there was still a lot of time left before the first babble, before the first rustles and rustles of the morning, before the first dewdrops of dawn. The moon was not in the sky: at that time it rose late. Countless golden stars seemed to be flowing silently, twinkling with each other, in the direction of the Milky Way, and, right, looking at them, you yourself seemed to vaguely feel the impetuous, unstoppable run of the earth ... A strange, sharp, painful cry suddenly rang out twice in a row over the river, and a few moments later it was repeated further ... Kostya shuddered. "What is it?" “It’s a heron screaming,” Pavel objected calmly. “Heron,” repeated Kostya ... “What is it, Pavlusha, I heard last night,” he added, after a pause, “perhaps you know ...— What did you hear? “That's what I heard. I walked from the Stone Ridge to Shashkino; and at first he walked through our hazel, and then he went through the meadow - you know, where it comes out with a doom - there is a bog there; you know, it's still overgrown with reeds; so I went past this thump, my brothers, and suddenly from that thrashed someone groaned, so pitifully, pitifully: y-y ... y-y ... wow! Such a fear took me, my brothers: the time is late, and the voice is so sick. So, it seems that he himself would cry ... What would it be? es? “Thieves drowned Akim the forester in this buchil last summer,” Pavlusha remarked, “perhaps his soul is complaining. “But even that, my brothers,” Kostya objected, widening his already huge eyes ... “I didn’t even know that Akim was drowned in that bucha: I wouldn’t have been so frightened yet. “And then, they say, there are such tiddly frogs,” Pavel continued, “that scream so plaintively. — Frogs? Well, no, these are not frogs... what are they... (The heron again shouted over the river.) - Ek her! Kostya involuntarily uttered, “screams like a goblin. “Goblin doesn’t scream, he’s dumb,” Ilyusha picked up, “he only claps his hands and crackles ... - And you saw him, the devil, or what? Fedya interrupted him mockingly. - No, I didn’t see it, and God save him to see; but others have seen it. Just the other day, he walked around our peasant: he led him, led him through the forest, and all around one clearing ... He barely made it home to the light. Well, did he see him? - Saw. He says that this one is standing big, big, dark, tangled up, as if behind a tree, you can’t make out well, as if hiding from the month, and looking, looking with eyes, blinking them, blinking ... - Oh you! exclaimed Fedya, shuddering slightly and shrugging his shoulders, “pfu!.. - And why did this trash get divorced in the world? Pavel noted. “I don’t understand, right! “Don’t scold: look, he will hear,” Ilya remarked. There was silence again. “Look, look, boys,” Vanya’s childish voice suddenly rang out, “look at the stars of God, how the bees are swarming!” He pushed his fresh little face out from under the bast mat, leaned on his fist, and slowly raised his large, quiet eyes upwards. The eyes of all the boys rose to the sky and did not soon fall. “Well, Vanya,” Fedya spoke affectionately, “is your sister Anyutka healthy?” “Healthy,” Vanya answered, burping slightly. - You tell her - what is she to us, why doesn’t she go? ..- I do not know. - You tell her to go.- I'll tell you. - You tell her that I will give her a present.- Will you give me? - I'll give you one too. Vanya sighed. “Well, no, I don’t need to. Give it to her, she's so kind with us. And Vanya again laid his head on the ground. Pavel got up and took the empty cauldron in his hand. - Where are you going? Fedya asked him. - To the river, to scoop up water: I wanted to drink some water. The dogs got up and followed him. - Watch out, don't fall into the river! Ilyusha called after him. Why would he fall? - said Fedya, - he will beware. - Yes, beware. Anything can happen: he will bend down, begin to draw water, and the waterman will grab him by the hand and drag him to him. Then they will begin to say: fell, they say, a small one into the water ... And what fell? .. Over there, climbed into the reeds, ”he added, listening. The reeds, moving apart, “rustled”, as we say. “But is it true,” Kostya asked, “that Akulina the fool has since gone mad, as if she had been in the water?” — Since then... What is it like now! But as they say, before the beauty was. The merman ruined it. Know, did not expect that it will be pulled out soon. Here he is, there at his bottom, and spoiled it. (I myself have met this Akulina more than once. Covered in rags, terribly thin, with a face as black as coal, a clouded look and eternally bared teeth, she tramples for hours in one place, somewhere on the road, tightly pressing her bony hands to her chest and slowly waddling from one foot to the other, like a wild animal in a cage, she does not understand anything, no matter what anyone says to her, and only occasionally convulsively laughs.) “But they say,” Kostya continued, “the reason why Akulina threw herself into the river was that her lover had deceived her. - From the same one. Do you remember Vasya? Kostya added sadly. - Which Vasya? Fedya asked. - But the one that drowned, - answered Kostya, - in this very river. What a boy it was! and-them, what a boy was! His mother, Feklista, how she loved him, Vasya! And as if she, Feklista, sensed that death would happen to him from the water. It used to happen that Vasya would go with us, with the guys, in the summer to swim in the river - she would be so all trembling. Other women are fine, they walk past with troughs, roll over, and Feklista puts the trough on the ground and starts calling him: “Come back, they say, come back, my little light! oh, come back, falcon!" And how he drowned, God knows. He played on the bank, and his mother was right there, raking hay; suddenly he hears, as if someone were blowing bubbles on the water - look, and only Vasya's little hat is floating on the water. After all, since then Feklista has not been in his right mind: he will come and lie down in the place where he drowned; she lies down, my brothers, and she sings a song - remember, Vasya used to sing such a song - so she sings it, and she cries, cries, bitterly pities God ... “But Pavlusha is coming,” said Fedya. Pavel approached the fire with a full cauldron in his hand. “What, guys,” he began after a pause, “there’s something wrong. - And what? Kostya asked hurriedly. - I heard Vasya's voice. Everyone was so startled. — What are you, what are you? murmured Kostya. — By God. As soon as I began to bend down to the water, I suddenly heard Vasya’s voice call me that way and, as if from under the water: “Pavlusha, and Pavlusha!” I'm listening to; and he again calls: "Pavlusha, come here." I walked away. However, he scooped up water. - Oh, my God! oh you, sir! the boys said, crossing themselves. “After all, it was the waterman who called you, Pavel,” Fedya added ... “And we just talked about him, about Vasya.” "Ah, that's a bad omen," Ilyusha said deliberately. - Well, nothing, let it go! Pavel said resolutely and sat down again, “you can’t escape your fate.” The boys quieted down. It was obvious that Paul's words made a deep impression on them. They began to lay down in front of the fire, as if about to sleep. - What is it? Kostya suddenly asked, raising his head. Pavel listened. - These are the Easter cakes flying, whistling. - Where are they flying? - And where, they say, winter does not happen. Is there such a land?- There is. - Long away? — Far, far, beyond the warm seas. Kostya sighed and closed his eyes. More than three hours have passed since I joined the boys. The moon has risen at last; I did not immediately notice it: it was so small and narrow. This moonless night, it seemed, was still as magnificent as before ... But already many stars, which until recently stood high in the sky, were already leaning towards the dark edge of the earth; everything was completely quiet all around, as usual everything calms down only towards morning: everything slept in a strong, motionless, pre-dawn sleep. The air no longer smelled so strongly - it seemed to be damp again ... Short summer nights! .. The conversation of the boys faded away along with the lights ... The dogs even dozed off; the horses, as far as I could distinguish, in the slightly peeping, weakly pouring light of the stars, also lay with their heads bowed ... Sweet oblivion attacked me; it passed into slumber. A fresh stream ran down my face. I opened my eyes: the morning was beginning. The dawn had not yet blushed anywhere, but it was already turning white in the east. Everything became visible, although vaguely visible, all around. The pale gray sky grew lighter, colder, bluer; the stars now twinkled with a faint light, then disappeared; the earth was damp, the leaves were sweating, in some places living sounds, voices began to be heard, and a thin, early breeze had already begun to roam and flutter over the earth. My body responded to him with a light, cheerful shiver. I quickly got up and walked over to the boys. They all slept like the dead around a smoldering fire; Pavel alone raised himself halfway up and looked intently at me. I nodded my head to him and went home along the smoky river. Before I had gone two versts, it was already pouring all around me over a wide wet meadow, and in front along the green hills, from forest to forest, and behind me along a long dusty road, along sparkling, crimson bushes, and along the river, bashfully blue from under thinning mist — first scarlet, then red, golden streams of young, hot light poured down... Everything stirred, woke up, sang, rustled, spoke. Large drops of dew blushed everywhere like radiant diamonds; towards me, clean and clear, as if also washed by the morning coolness, the sounds of a bell came, and suddenly a rested herd rushed past me, driven by familiar boys ... Unfortunately, I must add that in the same year Paul passed away. He did not drown: he killed himself by falling off his horse. Too bad, he was a nice guy!

Control dictations for the second half of the year. Bezhin Meadow Bezhin Meadow was a beautiful July day

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