D greenwood little ragamuffin read summary

The novel "Little Rag", written by British writer James Greenwood, tells about the existence of the poorest segments of the population of England in the 19th century.

The main character - Jimmy - from an early age knew all aspects of the life of the poor. The boy's mother died, his father beat him, and his stepmother simply hated her stepson. Jimmy had to babysit his little sister. When one day she fell, the frightened boy ran away from home. On the streets of the city, Jimmy met his peers, who stole everything that was bad and lived on the proceeds. The boy began to steal together.

But this life did not last long, Jimmy became very ill. Friends took care of him. The boy then ended up in the workhouse, but escaped home. His father attacked him with his fists and Jimmy had to go wandering again.

He was saved from starvation by a kind woman who placed the boy as a chimney sweep apprentice. His job was to clean the pipes located on the roof of the church. One night Jimmy saw two men carrying a huge sack. The boy managed to look into it. There, Jimmy found a corpse. The poor fellow had to run away again from the ill-fated place.

He accidentally met with the forester and told him about his find. When the boy and the man discovered the intruders who carried the dead man, the villains so intimidated Jimmy that he decided not to say anything to the policemen, but simply to run away again.

But the wagon he got to the capital, where he began to steal again. Jimmy managed to buy some clothes and find a place to live. But soon he fell into the clutches of a buyer of stolen goods and began to work for him. The huckster's wife told the boy to run away, because the buyer of stolen goods planned to hand over Jimmy to the police. The boy went himself to the policemen and told about the buyer of stolen goods. Soon the villain was captured.

Jimmy was sent to a juvenile detention center. After he was released, Jimmy managed to get rich in an honest way.

This work teaches that it is necessary to endure all life's trials with honor.

Picture or drawing Greenwood

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Greenwood's story "Little Rag", whose heroes will appear before you today, is incredible a touching story about little boy who survived many hardships on the way to an honest and happy life.

"I was born in London..."

The hero of the story "Little ruffian", summary which we will present today, appears before the reader as an adult man, serious and self-sufficient. He shares his memories of the Fraingpen street where he lived as a child.

Before the mind's eye of the reader appear the poor London slums, not without their charm. And, of course, little Jimmy, who lives with his sister Polly, his father and stepmother. Jim describes his neighbors by giving Special attention neighbor Mrs. Winkshim and her niece Martha - an ugly but incredibly kind woman.

Jimmy's childhood was not cloudless. He lost his mother early. Even before the second pregnancy, the poor woman was crippled by poverty and the beatings of her father. And after the birth of our hero's sister, she never recovered.

Immediately after the funeral of Jimmy's mother, a neighbor appeared in his father's life - the widow Mrs. Burke. The cunning woman won Mr. Balizet's trust very quickly. Meanwhile, the woman did not differ in kindness and immediately disliked her stepson. The boy nursed his little sister, often malnourished and suffered beatings from his father because of her slander.

Jim runs away from home

Before you is the second chapter of the story "Little Rogue", a summary of which will tell you about the beginning of Jim Balizet's wanderings.

One day, Jimmy's sister fell down the stairs and the boy, frightened to death by what had happened and his stepmother's anger, ran away from home. He wandered hungry through the streets until the kind townspeople threw him a few coins. He was able to eat on them. The boy even wanted to return home, but, hearing that his father was angry with him, he again went to the market, where he spent most day.

On the night streets of London, Jim met two boys somewhat older than him. He introduced himself as Jim Smithfield. Together with them, our hero spent his first night as a street child in an old van. As it turned out, his new friends Mouldy and Ripston are petty thieves who lived by reselling stolen goods, buying food for themselves with this money. Jimmy, alone and frightened, also begins to steal, which, it should be noted, he is very good at. In addition, the boys earn extra money with various small jobs.

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Fever and the workhouse

In the third chapter of the story "Little Rogue", a summary of which is described below, Jim falls ill and ends up in a workhouse.

In October, Jim became seriously ill. The boy was tormented by a fever, he was delirious. His friends did their best to alleviate Jim's condition. Soon our hero ended up in a workhouse, where he experienced a fever. From there, the boy was going to be sent to Stratford as an orphan, but he, too frightened by the stories about this place, ran away from the workhouse right on the eve of sending.

All day Jim waited outside for his friends, freezing in the February wind, but the boys never showed up. And then our hero, quite desperate, decided to return home. But near the tavern I saw my father - drunk, unkempt, embittered, who beat his stepmother in the same way as Jimmy's mother had once been. The boy hoped that his father's anger would soften at the sight of him, but he became even more furious and nearly killed his son. Jim barely managed to escape.

Now Jimmy felt relatively safe, but he was haunted by fear, he felt lonely and miserable.

Jim becomes "rich"

This chapter of Greenwood's story "Little Rag" briefly describes Jim's adventures on the street.

Wandering down the street, our hero witnessed a silent scene: a homeless child, a little older than Jim himself, quietly stole a wallet from rich woman admiring the shop window. Then Jim, overwhelmed by a sense of hopelessness, decided to also become a thief. No, he was somewhat disgusted by this idea, but he convinced himself: this is the only way for him to survive, lonely and homeless.

Soon the boy, who by nature was distinguished by dexterity, managed to buy new clothes and even rent a house. So, stealing wallets from the rich, he lived for two months. Till…

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Meeting with Mr. Gapkins

We continue to describe the summary of "Little Rogue" by James Greenwood. Jim meets Mr. Gapkinson.

One day, Jim managed to steal a purse full of gold coins on the street. Rushing to run, he fell directly into the hands of a richly dressed gentleman, who took him to his home. George Gapkins, despite his wealth, was not a gentleman. He profited from the work of petty thieves, taking the money they stole, and in return he promised shelter, food and change for pocket expenses. Jim liked his offer and gladly accepted.

After agreeing with George, Jim went to spend the money he had given him. He decided to go to the theatre, and there he ran into Ripston, his old thief friend. Jim learned from him that Ripston now works and lives honestly. As it turned out, the death of their mutual friend Mouldy had such an impact on the boy's worldview. He died a few months after Jim was sent to the workhouse, falling off the roof and breaking his bones.

Tormented by conscience, Jim confesses to Rip that he is still stealing. A friend calls him to work with him, but then Gapkins appears in front of the boys. Ripston leaves, confused. And George tells Jimmy all the way how thankless and hard honest work is.

At night, the owners of the house begin to quarrel. Jim tries to ignore it, but suddenly Mrs. Gapkins asks him to come down to her. She assures the boy that he needs to run, otherwise George, having squeezed all the juice out of him, will soon throw him in jail and find the next "fresh hands", as he did more than once.

The next morning, Mrs. Gapkins came down with a fever, and only after three weeks began to recover. Just at this time, George, with his friends Tilner and Armitage, decided to commit a major theft. The boy was warned about this by his wife, advising him to run as soon as possible.

Jim went to see Ripston, his only friend. Ripston introduced our hero to his masters, the elderly Mr. and Mrs. Tibbitt. Jim told them everything, including the impending crime. Mr. Tibbitt immediately went to the police, taking Jim with him.

Current page: 1 (total book has 13 pages)

James Greenwood
Little ragged

ABOUT JAMES GREENWOOD AND THE LITTLE RAG

1

"Books have a destiny," says the old saying. How true these words are can be shown by the peculiar history of this very book by the English writer James Greenwood, which is now before you, "The Little Rag" was first published in London in 1866. Two years later, this book was translated into Russian by Marko Vovchok (a pseudonym for the famous Ukrainian and Russian writer Maria Alexandrovna Markovich).

This can only be regretted. Truthful and sad story a little ragamuffin would reveal to them many useful truths and, undoubtedly, would arouse in many of them sincere indignation against the unjust practices under which thousands and thousands of children of English workers were doomed to premature death, starvation and poverty ...

Maybe the English teachers and book publishers deliberately did not want to distribute this book, which tells about the terrible and ugly life of the children of the English poor, among young readers?

Perhaps such a strange fate befell Greenwood's talented book only in England?

No, it turns out, not only in England. Except Russian, no other foreign languages"Little ruffian" was not translated.

All these facts once again confirm with what extraordinary sensitivity and responsiveness Russian readers have always perceived everything new and advanced that appeared in literature. foreign countries. After all, it has long been so customary for us that every new work of a foreign author worthy of attention immediately appeared in Russian translation and was widely disseminated. It is not for nothing that our great writers, from Pushkin to Gorky, have always admired the "universal responsiveness" of Russian literature and Russian readers.

But of the hundreds and thousands of translated books, many are forgotten over time; can be said to fail, and only some, the best, are destined long life and enduring recognition.

To such the best books The same applies to The Little Rag by James Greenwood. It not only stood the test of time, but even now, almost a hundred years after the first edition, it remains one of the favorite books of Soviet schoolchildren.

If a book deserves attention, then it is quite appropriate to be interested in its author. Indeed, what do we know about Greenwood? What was he like as a person and a writer? What other works does he have?

2

Answering these questions is not easy. The name of James Greenwood is as thoroughly forgotten in England as his "Little Rag".

Not a single article has been written about him, there are no mentions of him in the most detailed reference books, biographical dictionaries, and even in the Encyclopædia Britannica. If we didn't know that James Greenwood wrote The Little Rag, one might think that there was no such writer at all.

But one has only to look into the English "Book Chronicle" 1
"Book chronicle"- a monthly or yearly directory that lists all the books published in the country for a certain period. The Book Chronicle is published in almost all countries.

To make sure that such a writer not only existed, but published his books for more than four decades.

From the late fifties of the XIX century to the beginning of the XX century, James Greenwood published about forty books. In addition to The Little Rag, some of his other works were also translated into Russian.

Greenwood wrote on a variety of topics. special group his stories and novels for young people are about the adventures of English sailors in tropical countries, most often in Africa.

The heroes of Greenwood suffer shipwrecks, wander through deserts and jungles, languish in captivity with savages, hunt predatory animals with them, and after many adventures, in the end, safely return to their homeland. The nature of tropical countries, life and customs local residents Greenwood describes so colorfully and in detail, as if he himself had been to these countries.

Among such works by Greenwood, it is worth highlighting interesting novel- "The Adventures of Robin Davidger, who spent seventeen years and four months in captivity with the Dayaks on the island of Borneo" (1869). This book is a lot like Daniel Defoe's The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe.

Another group of Greenwood's works are his novels and stories about animals. These books show that the writer was well aware of the instincts and habits of wild animals, was able to accurately and accurately convey his observations.

Here you can name a curious book - "The Adventures of Seven Forest Quadrupeds, Told by Themselves" (1865). Just as Tolstoy does in the story "Kholstomer" or Chekhov in the story "Kashtanka", Greenwood endows animals with the ability to think and reason. different animals- a lion, a tiger, a bear, a wolf, a hippopotamus, a monkey and an elephant - tell the zookeeper, who understands their language, about their free life in the forests and how they were captured and brought to the London Zoological Garden.

third and most large group Greenwood's works are essays and short stories, novellas and novels about the life of the London "bottom". The writer tells about the difficult, bleak existence of the inhabitants of the London slums, about the life of tramps, street children, small artisans, tailors, factory workers, describes shelters for the poor, hospitals, prisons, doss houses, taverns, thieves' dens, etc.

This group of the most significant, sharply accusatory works by Greenwood also includes The Little Rag.

It is these books, in which the writer exposes the most disgusting ulcers of the capitalist city, that Greenwood knew the life of the common people well and deeply sympathized with their suffering and sorrows.

3

In the years when James Greenwood wrote his books, England was still the most powerful capitalist power in the world.

Her colonial possessions, captured at the cost of bloody wars and the ruthless extermination of freedom fighters, were in different parts light and stretched over millions of square kilometers.

English businessmen and nobles profited unheard of by robbing the colonial peoples. At that time, England still possessed the most powerful industry and the most numerous military and merchant fleet. English manufacturers and merchants, who profitably sold their goods in all states and countries, boastfully called England "the workshop of the world."

But the more the ruling classes got richer and profited, the more the position of the British working people worsened. In no other country were the workers then subjected to such cruel oppression as in England. In no country has there been such glaring poverty, such a number of suicides and criminal offenses, such a mass of unemployed, hungry and vagabonds, as in England. No other country had such terrible conditions of existence as in the famous London slums.

The horrors of London's slums were rivaled at that time only by workhouses, which were introduced in England in 1834, after the government had abolished all benefits for the poor.

The unfortunate people who ended up in workhouses turned into convicts. Husbands were separated from their wives, children were taken away from their parents. It was allowed to leave the workhouse only in special cases, at the discretion of the authorities. The inhabitants of the workhouses were forced to do the most exhausting work for free: men had to crush stone, women and children to pinch old ropes, etc. The food in workhouses was worse than in prisons. Therefore, many victims of "charity" preferred to be branded as criminals in the eyes of the guards in order to get into an ordinary prison, where the regime was less severe.

The introduction of workhouses sparked a number of uprisings.

But only in 1909, under the pressure of ever-growing indignation populace The British government was forced to close the workhouses.

At the same time, in rich and powerful England, tens and hundreds of thousands of young children were cut off from families and schools, thrown into the streets or given over to greedy entrepreneurs.

It is known that no country child labour did not bring the capitalists such huge profits as in England of the 19th century.

Little workers were forced to bend their backs from early morning until late at night, and they were paid such miserable pennies that they were only enough to keep from dying of hunger.

The progressive people of England for many years led hard fight against the cruel exploitation of children. In the end, the British government had to introduce laws that prohibited the employment of minors and forced children to work until late at night.

4

In the first half of the 19th century, the activities of several major writers unfolded in England, who set themselves the goal of tirelessly exposing the monstrous crimes of the English capitalists, telling the world the harsh truth about the bitter fate of the English poor, telling how thousands of people live and die in workhouses and debtors' prisons. , in damp basements and cold attics. At the same time, these writers indignantly portrayed the idle, carefree life of the inhabitants of rich mansions, fenced off by high stone walls from the rest of the world.

Such realist writers, stern accusers of the ruling classes in England, include Charles Dickens, William Thackeray, Charlotte Bronte, Elisabeth Gaskell and other English writers, whose work was highly valued by Marx and Engels.

Those who have read Dickens's Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, David Copperfield, Little Dorrit will surely find in them a lot in common both in topic and in the attitude of the author to the heroes of the people with Greenwood's Little Rag.

And it is no coincidence. Greenwood certainly belongs to the same group of 19th-century English realist writers that was still led by Dickens in the sixties.

James Greenwood, as we know, suffered an undeservedly sad fate. His name is actually deleted from English Literature; his books are forgotten, and almost no information about him has been preserved. And if, after a long and unsuccessful search, we nevertheless managed to come across his trail, it is only because an English historian, by the name of Robertson Scott, published a book a few years ago about his brother Frederick.

Frederick Greenwood was a well-known journalist and editor of the influential newspaper, the Pell-Mall Gazette. In the book about Frederick Greenwood, the author reports on three pages, not without difficulty, the meager biographical facts he found about Frederick's younger brother, James Greenwood.

5

James Greenwood was born in 1833 in the family of a small employee.

In addition to James, the family had eleven children - brothers and sisters, who later went on different paths. Three brothers - Frederick, James and Walter - began their independent life from the fact that they entered the printing house as compositors. A few years later, Frederick and James began to cooperate in the newspapers, and Walter, who fell ill with tuberculosis, died at the counter.

Frederick, always striving for a "solid", secure existence, eventually saved up a hefty sum and became the editor of a large newspaper. James, on the contrary, was always drawn to the very thick of life, and he did not want to exchange his freedom for a well-paid position in the editorial office, which Frederick had offered him more than once.

Having chosen his own path, James turned into a skilled journalist and writer, writing articles, essays and novels on the most topical issues. In the sixties and seventies the name of James Greenwood was well known in England. He drew attention to himself with ruthlessly truthful essays on London's lodging houses.

Having once disguised himself as a tramp, he froze on the street for several hours on a rainy autumn night before he managed to get a place in a rooming house. Here he encountered such indescribable filth and stench, such dire poverty and such incredible human suffering, that it far surpassed even his darkest assumptions about the horrors of the London slums.

Greenwood told about everything he saw in his essays, which, however, were significantly softened by censorship. Nevertheless, the essays aroused such interest that the circulation of the newspaper in which they were published increased dramatically. Then Greenwood's essays were reprinted by many other newspapers and caused numerous responses. So, for example, one review said: “The picture painted by Greenwood is all the more terrible because he himself spent only one night in these conditions, and thousands of our compatriots are forced to spend their whole lives in this way ...”

James Greenwood wrote his best books in the sixties.

Then he begins to print less and less often, until, finally, his name disappears from literature altogether. When Greenwood published his last book in 1905, he was already an unknown author to a new generation of readers, since his name and his many works of the sixties and seventies had long been forgotten.

James Greenwood died in 1929, at the ninety-seventh year of his life.

Of the works of James Greenwood on social topics, the book of essays, The Seven Plagues of London (1869), is especially interesting.

They largely complement and explain the "Little Rogue".

Greenwood considers child homelessness, poverty, vagrancy, alcoholism, criminal offenses, the existence of the lowest dens, etc. to be the most terrible social ulcers in London.

Drawing the state of affairs sharply and without embellishment, Greenwood still hopes that these blatant London sores can be healed if the government finally pays attention to them. But the writer did not understand that the irreconcilable contradictions of wealth and poverty, that the terrible slums of a large capitalist city cannot completely disappear as long as the capitalist system exists, which inevitably gives rise to the oppression of man by man, the boundless arbitrariness of the money bag.

The essay "Street Children" is closely connected with the theme of "Little Rogue". Greenwood writes: “I do not know exactly where this information came from, but it is now recognized as a fact that within the vast flowering London, up to a hundred thousand boys and girls roam daily, both in summer and in winter, without supervision, food, clothes and classes. Excellent candidates for the workhouse and finally for Portland 2
Portland- transit prison in England.

Greenwood and in "Little Rag" convincingly shows how poverty and vagrancy push people to criminal offenses.

Innate honesty and decency constantly struggle in Jim with the bad effects of the horrendous conditions in which he has to live. In the end, Jim slides down a slippery slope and begins to trade in theft.

But is it Jim's fault alone? Throughout the course of the story, the author proves that he is not the only one to blame. The desperate poverty of his father, the endless strife in the family, the beating of Jim by his always drunk stepmother - all this forces him to run away from home and start the life of a tramp.

True, the British government "took care" of the poor: it created shelters and almshouses, overnight shelters and workhouses. But the living conditions in these "charitable" establishments are so terrible that little Jim prefers to wander in the open skies, just not to end up in hard labor in the workhouse.

Thus, we see that the very laws of the bourgeois state, the very conditions of existence of a huge number of people deprived of any means of subsistence, inevitably give rise to vagrancy, begging, and theft. When, at the end of the book, little Jim gets rid of the swindler Gapkins and finds himself in a different environment, he forever refuses to steal and goes to work.

How vital and true the story of the little ragamuffin is confirmed by other observations of Greenwood, which we find in the same essay on street children.

“Throughout London,” he writes, “two types of homeless people loiter: the 'house-owners' and the 'homeless'. There is the same difference between them as between a yard dog and a street dog that knows no other kennel than some gutter."

Homeless Jim finds himself in exactly the same position: either he spends the night with two comrades in the catacombs, then in the carrier's van, and sometimes on damp ground. During the day, he trades in Covent Garden market, stealing what comes to hand, or eating garbage.

“An essential part of subsistence,” Greenwood goes on to say in his essay, “is garbage.

You might think that any rot loses its poisonous properties for them and is endowed with the qualities of healthy food.

But that's just how it seems. In fact, many street children die, unable to endure such a terrible life.

And yet their number in London is not decreasing. In place of the dead, need pushes new crowds of little vagrants out into the street. “If this morning,” Greenwood notes bitterly, “death swept every last one of these dirty ragamuffins, picking up their food among heaps of rotten things in the market, then tomorrow the market would be so much but crowded with them, as always.

6

Greenwood told a lot of harsh truth about the plight of the children of English workers.

Many sad thoughts evoke his book.

And yet, Greenwood's story does not leave a depressing impression. She is warmed by the writer's ardent love for ordinary people who, in all life's trials, do not lose their self-control, good spirits and faith in a better future.

Until the very last page, we follow with intense attention the unfortunate adventures of the little ragamuffin, sincerely sympathize with his sorrows and sorrows, rejoice with him when he manages to get a crust of bread or find a place to sleep.

Even in the most difficult moments little Jim is not discouraged and does not lose courage. His cheerful and sociable character, his inherent sense of justice and benevolent attitude towards people help him find faithful comrades and friends who more than once help him out of trouble. And until the very last page, we do not stop believing that the little ragamuffin will endure all the trials and tribulations and will be able to win the struggle of life.

In the autobiographical story "In People" Maxim Gorky recalls what a great impression he made on him when he was a teenager, "Little Rag" Greenwood. AT tragic fate Alyosha Peshkov, a London homeless child, who at every step encountered the dirt and vulgarity of the old world, saw much in common with the vicissitudes of his own life. But Greenwood's book did not discourage him. Against! She strengthened his spiritual vigor, his faith in the ability of a person to withstand any trials and tribulations.

In the story "In People" Gorky recalls how one acquaintance of the cutter gave him to read different interesting books which unexpectedly opened before him a large and wide world.

“A few days later,” writes Gorky, “she gave me Greenwood.” true story little ruffian"; the title of the book pricked me a little, but the very first page evoked a smile of delight in my soul - so with this smile I read the whole book to the end, rereading other pages two, three times ... Greenwood gave me a lot of vigor ... "

Greenwood's book was written long ago and tells about the distant past. But all those ugly life phenomena, about which the writer so truthfully narrates through the mouth of his little hero, until now, though in a slightly modified form, continue to exist in capitalist countries and in particular in England.

Such social calamities as unemployment and impoverishment of the working people, child neglect and overwork of children in industrial enterprises will completely disappear only when the socialist system triumphs throughout the world.

1

"Books have a destiny," says the old saying. How true these words are can be shown by the peculiar history of this very book by the English writer James Greenwood, which is now before you, "The Little Rag" was first published in London in 1866. Two years later, this book was translated into Russian by Marko Vovchok (a pseudonym for the famous Ukrainian and Russian writer Maria Alexandrovna Markovich).

The story of a bitter childhood and the misadventures of a little London tramp was met with great interest by Russian readers. Soon abridged translations and adaptations of The Little Rogue for children began to appear in Russia one after another.

After the Great October Socialist Revolution, it was repeatedly published in the retelling of T. Bogdanovich and K. Chukovsky. In Russian and the languages ​​of the peoples of the USSR, Greenwood's "Little Rag" went through a total of more than forty editions. It has long been deservedly recognized by us as a classic work of children's literature.

It is natural to assume that in Greenwood's homeland, in England, his book is as widely known and distributed as it is here, in the Soviet Union. But actually it is not.

"The Little Rag" was printed in England only twice and has long been forgotten (the second and last edition appeared in 1884). In England, "The Little Rag" was never published for children, and English schoolchildren never read it.

This can only be regretted. The true and sad story of the little ragamuffin would reveal to them many useful truths and, undoubtedly, would arouse in many of them sincere indignation against the unjust practices under which thousands and thousands of children of English workers were doomed to premature death, hunger and poverty ...

Maybe the English teachers and book publishers deliberately did not want to distribute this book, which tells about the terrible and ugly life of the children of the English poor, among young readers?

Perhaps such a strange fate befell Greenwood's talented book only in England?

No, it turns out, not only in England. Apart from Russian, The Little Rag has not been translated into any other foreign languages.

All these facts once again confirm with what extraordinary sensitivity and responsiveness Russian readers have always perceived everything new and advanced that appeared in the literature of foreign countries. After all, it has long been so customary for us that every new work of a foreign author worthy of attention immediately appeared in Russian translation and was widely disseminated. It is not for nothing that our great writers, from Pushkin to Gorky, have always admired the "universal responsiveness" of Russian literature and Russian readers.

But of the hundreds and thousands of translated books, many are forgotten over time; it can be said that they fail, and only a few, the best, are destined for a long life and lasting recognition.

One such best book is The Little Rag by James Greenwood. It not only stood the test of time, but even now, almost a hundred years after the first edition, it remains one of the favorite books of Soviet schoolchildren.

If a book deserves attention, then it is quite appropriate to be interested in its author. Indeed, what do we know about Greenwood? What was he like as a person and a writer? What other works does he have?

2

Answering these questions is not easy. The name of James Greenwood is as thoroughly forgotten in England as his "Little Rag".

Not a single article has been written about him, there are no mentions of him in the most detailed reference books, biographical dictionaries, and even in the Encyclopædia Britannica. If we didn't know that James Greenwood wrote The Little Rag, one might think that there was no such writer at all.

But one has only to look into the English Book Chronicle to be convinced that such a writer not only existed, but published his books for more than four decades.

From the late fifties of the XIX century to the beginning of the XX century, James Greenwood published about forty books. In addition to The Little Rag, some of his other works were also translated into Russian.

Greenwood wrote on a variety of topics. A special group is made up of his stories and novels for young people - about the adventures of English sailors in tropical countries, most often in Africa.

The heroes of Greenwood suffer shipwrecks, wander through deserts and jungles, languish in captivity with savages, hunt predatory animals with them, and after many adventures, in the end, safely return to their homeland. Greenwood describes the nature of tropical countries, the life and customs of the local people in such a colorful and detailed way, as if he himself had been to these countries.

Among such works by Greenwood, an interesting novel should be highlighted - The Adventures of Robin Davidger, who spent seventeen years and four months in captivity with the Dayaks on the island of Borneo (1869). This book is a lot like Daniel Defoe's The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe.

Another group of Greenwood's works are his novels and stories about animals. These books show that the writer was well aware of the instincts and habits of wild animals, was able to accurately and accurately convey his observations.

Here you can name a curious book - "The Adventures of Seven Forest Quadrupeds, Told by Themselves" (1865). Just as Tolstoy does in the story "Kholstomer" or Chekhov in the story "Kashtanka", Greenwood endows animals with the ability to think and reason. Various animals - a lion, a tiger, a bear, a wolf, a hippopotamus, a monkey and an elephant - tell the zookeeper, who understands their language, about their free life in the forests and how they were captured and brought to the London Zoological Garden.

Chapter I
Some details about my place of birth and my relationship

I was born in London, at number 19, Fringpen Lane, near Turnmill Street. The reader is probably not at all familiar with this area, and if he took it into his head to look for it, his labors would remain unsuccessful. It would be in vain for him to make inquiries with various persons, who, apparently, should know both this street and this alley well. A petty shopkeeper who lived in an alley Turkish head» twenty paces from my lane, would shake his head in disbelief in response to the questions of an inquisitive reader; he would say that he knew Fringpon Lane and Tommel Street in the neighborhood, but he had never heard those strange names that he was now told about; it would never have occurred to him that his Fringpon and Thommel were nothing more than twisted Fringpen and Turnmill.

However, no matter what the shopkeeper might think, Fraingpen Alley does exist, that's for sure. Its outward appearance is exactly the same now as it was twenty years ago when I lived there; only the stone step at the entrance to it was badly worn out, and the plaque with its name was renewed; the entrance to it is as dirty as before, and with the same low, narrow vault. This vault is so low that a scavenger with a basket has to crawl almost on his knees through it, and so narrow that a shop shutter or even a coffin lid can serve as a gate for him.

As a child, I was not particularly cheerful and carefree happy: I constantly turned my main attention to coffins and funerals. Many funerals pass through our lane, especially in summer, and therefore it is not surprising if I often thought about coffins: I mentally measured all our neighbors and wondered if it would be possible to carry their coffins along our narrow lane. I was especially worried about the funeral of two persons; firstly, a fat innkeeper who lived in Turnmill Street and often came into our alley for pots and pans, which the neighbors took from him and then forgot to return to him. Alive, he had to leave the alley sideways, but what will happen when he dies, and suddenly his shoulders are stuck between two walls?

Even more disturbing was Mrs. Winkship's funeral. Mrs. Winkship was an old woman who lived at the entrance to the alley; she was shorter, but still fatter than an innkeeper; in addition, I loved and respected her from the bottom of my heart, I did not want her to be treated disrespectfully even after death, and therefore I thought long and often about how to carry her coffin through a narrow entrance. Mrs. Winkship's business was renting carts and lending money to the fruit merchants who lived in our lane. She was proud of the fact that for thirty years she had not gone anywhere beyond Turnmill Street, once she had only gone to the theater, and even then she had knocked her leg out. She used to sit for whole days on the threshold of her own house; instead of a chair, she was served by an overturned coke measure, on which, for greater convenience, a sack of chaff lay. She sat in this way for the purpose of watching the fruit merchants: she had to demand money from them while they were going home, having sold their goods, otherwise she would often have to suffer losses. In good weather, she had breakfast, and dinner, and drank tea without leaving her bag. Her niece lived with her, a young woman, terribly disfigured by smallpox, one-eyed, with her hair combed back, ugly, but very good-natured, and often fed me delicious dinners. She held the key to the shed where the carts stood and prepared meals for her aunt. What kind of food were these! I have had many excellent dinners in my life, but none of them could compare with Mrs. Winkship's. Just at one o'clock in the afternoon, Mrs. Winkship moved her coke measure from the door to the drawing-room window, and asked: Is everything ready, Martha? Come on! - Martha opened the window and placed salt, vinegar, pepper and mustard on the windowsill, then brought out a large box that replaced the table and covered with a tablecloth as white as snow, and finally ran back into the room, from where she served dinner to her aunt through the window. How tasty this dinner seemed, how pleasantly it smoked, and, most importantly, what a wonderful smell it spread! It's a saying among us boys and girls of Fringpen Lane that Mrs Winkship has a Sunday every day. We never ate those in our houses. delicious meals, which she treated herself to, and found that nothing could be better than them in the world. We only got the smell, and we quite enjoyed it. After dinner, Mrs. Winkship used to drink rum with hot water. Did we laugh at the good old lady for this, did we condemn her for her little weakness for wine? Oh no, not at all! We realized early on that this weakness could be beneficial to us. Each of us, the boys and girls of the alley, wanted her to send him to the shop for her usual portion of rum. To do this, some tricks had to be used. We usually vigilantly watched from the doorways to see if the old woman would soon finish dinner and again transfer her bag to the threshold of the house. Then one of us would come out of the ambush and approach her, yawning around with the most innocent look. Getting pretty close, you should have asked if she needed to buy anything.

Are you talking to me boy? Mrs. Winkship was wont to wonder.

“Yes, sir, I’m going to Rue Tommel for mother’s molasses, I was wondering if you would like some tea or something.

“No thanks, boy; I have already bought myself tea, and they will bring me milk right now, it seems that I don’t need anything else.

She herself and each of us knew very well what she needed. But what a misfortune if some awkward boy would take it into his head to hint about rum! Never again would he have to do the old lady's errands! It was necessary, after Mrs. Winkship's answer, to simply bow politely and walk past, then she would probably call her over and say:

“Listen, boy, you don’t care, run along with Mr. Pigot, you know?

- Well, sir, I know, sir, this is the Dog in the Fence inn.

“Well, yes, buy me threepence of the best rum and a piece of lemon there. And here's to you for your work!

She gave the nimble boy a small coin and after that he had only to watch her while she drank; after the last sip, she became unusually kind, and often one or two more coins fell to the one who approached her at that time. She was especially fond of me, and in one evening I managed to get four halfpence from her.

However, I was busy nursing my little sister all the time, and rarely succeeded in enjoying the favors of Mrs. Winkship, so that it was not from selfish purposes that I worried about her death. I never got to see this sad event. When I ran out of Fringpen Lane, the kind old lady sat quietly on her coke measure, and when I returned from Australia as a grown, tanned man, it turned out that no one living in Clerkenwell parish knew anything about her.

In all other respects, on my return from distant lands, I found our lane exactly as I had left it. As before, a garland of onions strung on a string descended from one window, strips of dry cod from another, and fresh herring flaunted on a third. Still some people in the alley had laundry day; tattered curtains, rags of colorful blankets, darned shirts and flannel sweatshirts were still drying on ropes nailed to the walls of houses or tied to floor brushes.

As before, at the end of the alley, there was a large leaky water barrel, into which water from the tank ran every morning for three-quarters of an hour, and as before, around this barrel there was hustle, bustle and squabble. Here stood large, bony, untidy women in shoes on their bare feet, with disheveled hair, with buckets, which they threatened menacingly at anyone who dared to come before them for water; there stood a big, clumsy Irishman with a saucepan in his hands; he pushed with his elbows and with his whole body the little girls who had come for water with their pots and bowlers, and in order to make their way forward, he trampled on their poor, bare fingers with the prickly nails of his heavy boots; there was even a strong man, exactly like “dashing Jack”, who in my childhood inspired both fear and respect, and not only poor, barefoot girls, but even a clumsy Irishman, even angry women, shunned this strong man just as timidly. Everything, everything has remained unchanged, although many years have passed since I lived here as a child. I started looking at houses. My eyes fell on house no. 19. Everything is the same, even, it seems, the same sugar paper, the same old rags replace the glass in many windows! And if now, at once, one of these windows were opened, a tousled, red-haired head would stick out, and harsh voice: "Jimmy! Ugly boy, I'll beat you to the blood if you don't get off this ladder and take the girl away, ”I wouldn’t be at all surprised. I was caressed, I was instructed, I was scolded hundreds of times from this very window. In the room it illuminates, my sister Polly was born when I was a little over five years old. In the same room my mother died a few minutes after the birth of my sister.

Don't think that the red-haired woman with the shrill voice was my mother, no, it was my stepmother. All I remember about my mother was that she was a woman with dark hair and a pale face. She must have been kind to me, because I loved her dearly and still love her. Her father treated her rudely, unkindly. Often he scolded her, often even beat her, so that she shouted all over the street. I was very sorry for the poor mother, and I did not understand why her father did not love her so much, but meanwhile he really loved her, he did not expect that his beatings would do her any harm, and did not even change his address when she started to get sick.

Chapter II
What happened one Friday

One Friday afternoon, after playing enough in the street, I was returning home; I went upstairs and was about to open the door to our room, when suddenly I was stopped by Mrs. Jenkins; she lived with her husband one floor below us, but this time she found herself behind something in our room. She put her head on the stairs, in an angry voice ordered me to go play outside and locked the door under my very nose. This offended and annoyed me very much. I began to roar at the top of my lungs, knocking and pounding on the door. I asked my mother to send nasty Jenkins out and give me molasses bread. At my cries, my mother came to the door.

“Don’t make such noise, Jimmy,” she said to me in a gentle voice, “I’m sick, my head hurts, here you go, buy yourself a pie!”

I heard a metallic sound at my feet; I bent down and saw that my mother had slipped a coin for me through a crack under the door. I grabbed a coin and ran to buy a pie.

I played for a long time on the street, but, finally, I got bored and returned home again. Before I had time to get up our stairs to the first floor, some tall gentleman all in black overtook me; he was evidently in a hurry, walked two or three steps, and knocked at our doors. It was opened to him, and he again locked the door behind him. I sat down on the step of the stairs and waited for him to go away. But he did not leave, and I waited until I fell asleep. My father, who came back that evening later than usual and drunk, found me sleeping on the stairs and began loudly scolding my mother for not taking care of me.

“Mother has someone, father,” I remarked.

- Is there someone?

- Who it? the father asked.

- Some gentleman with such a white thing around his neck, and his boots creak. Mrs Jenkins is there too.

Father suddenly became meek.

We went downstairs and knocked on old Jenkins's door. He came out to us sleepy, rubbing his eyes, and immediately dragged his father into his room.

Have you been upstairs, Jim? he asked in an alarmed voice.

- No, - answered the father: - what happened there?

- It's rubbish! said the old man in the same alarmed voice. “My old woman told me not to let you in there. She also sent for the doctor, many women were found there, but the doctor drove them all out, he says, peace and tranquility are needed.

“Doctors always say that,” said my father calmly.

This calmness did not seem to please Mr. Jenkins.

- He doesn't understand anything! he grumbled through his teeth. - Well, how to cook it little by little! - and then, turning to his father, he said in a decisive voice:

“You need to know, Jim, that it’s bad, really bad!” He pointed to the ceiling.

It was not so much Mr. Jenkins's words that affected my father as much as the tone in which they were spoken. He must have been stunned to the point that he couldn't speak. He took off his hat and sat down on a chair near the window, holding me on his knees.

"She's been waiting for you," Jenkins said after a moment's silence. This is his walk! I know!

Was she waiting for me? Did you want to see me? How strange! cried the father.

“She said even stranger things,” Jenkins continued, “she said: “I want to kiss him, I want him to hold my hand, I want to make peace with him before he dies!”

Father quickly jumped up from his chair, walked two or three times around the rooms - so quietly that you could hardly hear his forged boots touching the floor - stopped with his back to Jenkins and facing the picture hanging on the wall, and stood like that for not a few minutes. .

“Jenkins,” he said at last, continuing to look at the picture: the doctor drove everyone out of there ... I'm afraid to go there ... You go, call your wife!

Jenkins apparently did not like to carry out this assignment, but he did not want to disturb his already distressed father by his refusal. He left the room, and soon we heard the sound of his footsteps going up the stairs. A few seconds later Mrs. Jenkins herself entered the room with her husband. Seeing us, she threw up her hands, fell into a chair and began to sob loudly. I was terribly scared.

Why is mom up now? I asked her.

- Got up? No, my poor little lamb,” she answered, choking with tears, “no, poor little orphan! She will never get up again.

For a moment my father took his eyes off the picture and looked at Mrs. Jenkins, as if he wanted to say something, but said nothing.

“She's dying, Jim,” Jenkins went on. The doctor said there was no hope of saving her!

And Mrs. Jenkins began to sob again. old husband her walked around her and tried to calm her down. I did not understand well what she said, but for some reason her words frightened me greatly, I ran up to her and hid my head in her lap. Father seemed to pay no attention to us. He leaned his forehead against the wall, and suddenly I heard a strange sound: pit, pat, pit. The picture that he had so carefully examined before was only glued to the wall. top, the lower corner of it turned up, and, probably, the tears of the father, falling on this corner, produced a strange sound: pit, stalemate.

Suddenly he made an effort on himself, wiped his eyes with a handkerchief, and turned to us.

- Doctor, upstairs? - he asked.

“Yes, of course, would I really have left her alone!”

“No, don’t go, Jim,” Jenkins urged, “the doctor says that she needs rest, that any excitement increases her suffering.

“I tell you that I will go,” my father repeated. - Poor thing! She wants to hold the hand that hit her so often! She asks me to reconcile:

Wait here, Mrs. Jenkins, maybe she needs to tell me something in confidence.

He left the room, but at that very moment the doctor's impatient voice was heard from above.

“Miss, how are you?” Come here quickly! She had to leave right now!

Mrs. Jenkins jumped up and ran upstairs, followed by her father.

He did not stay long at the top. Soon his steps were again heard on the stairs, and he returned to us.

He took me on his knees, leaned on the table, covered his face with his hands and did not say a word.

It was in the middle of September; the evenings were getting dark and cold. We all three sat in silence. Old Jenkins was making a cage for canaries.

Suddenly my father started up and suddenly shouted: - My God, Jenkins, how hard it is for me, I can't take it anymore, I'm choking!

He untied his thick neckerchief.

“I can't take a minute longer. By God, I can't!

“If I were you, Jim, I’d take a little walk down the street, maybe ten minutes. Come, I will go with you!

- And the boy? the father asked.

“He doesn’t mind sitting here for a minute, does he, Jimmy?” He will watch the squirrel run in the wheel.

I said that I would sit, that it was nothing, but in fact I thought otherwise; they left and I was left alone in the room. At this time, it grew darker and darker, and finally it was almost completely dark. I didn't really like Mrs. Jenkins, and therefore I almost never went into her room. Now I have already spent more than an hour in it, but I was always busy with what was being said and done around me, so that I did not have time to make out the things that were in this room. Left alone, I took up this scrutiny. Several bird cages were placed along the wall, in which birds sat, but all of them, with the exception of the thrush, were already sleeping, hiding their heads under their wings. The thrush sat quietly, only his eyes sparkled and blinked every time I looked at him. In addition to the thrush and the squirrel, there was a whalebone in the room on a small table and a pot-bellied jar with a human head, its mouth wide open, from which a stream of water was about to pour out. The darker it got, the stranger all the surrounding objects seemed to me: I even began to be afraid to look around; I fixed my eyes on the cage of the squirrel and began to follow the little animal, running fast in its wire wheel.

Much more than ten minutes passed, but my father and Jenkins did not return. It was already completely dark, and from all the squirrel I saw only a white spot on her chest; her wheel creaked, her claws clicked, the clock ticked non-stop, and upstairs in her mother's room there was a creak of the doctor's boots. I became so frightened that I could no longer bear it; I got down from the chair to the floor, closed my eyes so as not to see the terrible thrush in passing, quietly left the room and, climbing halfway up the stairs, sat down on the step. If Jenkins had been alone with my mother, I would certainly have gone into our room, but the doctor frightened me; in his presence I did not dare to open our door. It was not very comfortable for me to sit on the hard stairs, but still better than staying in Jenkins' scary room. Through the keyhole of our door, a bright strip of retinue broke through, illuminating part of the railing. I sat down on the stairs, as close as possible to this bright place, grabbed the railing with both hands, and soon fell into a sound sleep. I do not know how long I slept, I was awakened by the voice of my father.

Is that you, Jimmy? he asked: why are you here? Are you tired of being alone?

“And he must have been sitting at the window waiting for us,” Jenkins remarked, “and as soon as he noticed that we were coming, he ran at once to open the door for us.

- No no! I cried, grabbing hold of my father, “It’s not true at all! I was scared, dad!

My father wanted to say something to me, but said nothing, and we silently entered Jenkins' room, who had already lighted a candle.

Suddenly there was the sound of a door opening upstairs, and then the creaking of the doctor's boots on the stairs.

The doctor is leaving! - said the father in an excited voice: - she must be better!

But the doctor did not leave; on the contrary, he stopped at our door and knocked. Jenkins hastened to open the door for him.

– Your name is Balizet? - the doctor turned to him, - you, husband ...

- No, sorry, it's not me. Jim, come here.

“I am her husband at your service, sir,” said my father, boldly stepping forward and holding me in his arms. How does she feel now, may I ask?

"Ah, it's you, Mr. Balizet," the doctor said in a voice that was not at all the rough one he used to say. “Is this the little boy she was talking about?”

“Yes, it must be, sir. Can't we go up and see her now? We wouldn't bother her.

“Well, my friend,” the doctor interrupted, taking me by the hand of his big hand in a black glove - your poor mother is dead, and you should be a good boy now. You have a little sister and you must take care of her in memory of your mother. Farewell, my dear. Farewell, Mr. Balizet. Bear your loss with courage, as a man should. Goodnight!

In response to the doctor's words, the father silently bowed his head. He was amazed, his eyes wandered around, and he seemed to understand nothing. It was only when old Jenkins went to shine on the stairs for the doctor that the ability to think and speak returned to his father.

- Oh my God! Dead! Dead! he said in a hollow voice with suppressed sobs.

So old Jenkins found him when he returned with a candle; so the priest found him, who went to his mother, probably at the time when I was sleeping on the stairs, and now, returning back, wanted to say a few words of comfort to him; so Mrs. Jenkins found him, and not a few of the neighbors, who entered the room with her. They all tried to say something soothing to their father, but he did not listen to them. Mrs. Jenkins brought with her a bundle of rags, and, unrolling it, began to ask her father to look at the little one and hold her in his arms. The father held the baby, but paid very little attention to her. I was also allowed to hold my little sister a little. The neighbors, noticing that the father did not want to talk to them, little by little they all went away; Mrs. Jenkins was called upstairs for some reason, and Jenkins and I were left alone again.

“Take my advice, Jim,” he said to his father, “go to bed with the boy. There's my son Joe's bed in the back room, he won't come home till morning; lie down, Jim, if you don't fall asleep, then at least calm down!

After several persuasion, my father and I finally agreed to spend the night in Joe's room. This room was by no means a comfortable bedroom. Joe Jenkins worked nights in a graphite factory, and during the day he was selling birds, rabbits and dogs, making cages and stuffing birds. The whole room was littered different things, wires and wooden sticks were sticking out everywhere, in addition, there was a strong smell of some kind of glue and paints. But my father was unpretentious, besides, this time he probably would not fall asleep peacefully in the richest bedroom, on the most comfortable bed. As long as the people in the house were still awake, as long as footsteps were heard up and down the stairs, as long as we could hear the noise from the street, he lay quite still. But when, little by little, the noises in the streets died away, and everything calmed down around, the father began to turn anxiously in bed. He rolled over from side to side, now tightly clasping his hands on his chest, then closing his eyes with them. One thing really surprised me. No matter how my father tossed and turned, he always carefully tried not to disturb me. With every awkward movement, he gently stroked my shoulder and whispered: shh, as if afraid that I would wake up. But I didn't want to sleep. I didn't know exactly what had happened, but I felt that something terrible had happened. I really wanted to understand what exactly had happened to my mother. Mrs. Jenkins said she wasn't there, and meanwhile I heard two women walking upstairs and talking quietly, he must have been there with his mother; but why, when leaving, did they lock the door with a key? I asked Mrs. Jenkins, “Where has Mother gone, and will she be back soon?” and she answered me: “She will never return, my poor boy; she has gone where all good people go and she will never come back.” How long is "never", I asked myself. What is a day, a week, a month? What is longer than my birthday or Christmas time? I had often heard the word "never" before, but I did not understand it exactly. I remember once my father said to my mother at breakfast in the morning: “I don’t want to know you! I will never eat a piece of bread with you again, ”and in the evening he came and calmly ate bread and other dishes with his mother. The mother also once said to her father when he hit her so hard that she fell to the floor: “Jim, I will never, never, as long as I live, forgive you for this!” And, they say, she forgave him, she wanted to kiss him and make peace with him. Must mean "never" different times. What does it mean when talking about mother? I must certainly ask Mrs. Jenkins tomorrow. Or maybe my father knows, I'd better ask him.

- Dad, are you sleeping?

- No, Jimmy, I'm not sleeping, why?

- Dad, what is "never"?

The father raised himself on his elbow; he must have never expected such a question.

- Shh! Sleep, Jimmy, did you dream something?

“No, I haven’t slept yet, that’s why I can’t fall asleep, I keep thinking about it. Tell me daddy what's "never" mommy's "never"

- Mom's "never"? he repeated. - You are a wonderful boy, what did you think up, I do not understand.

“And I don’t understand, dad, I thought you would tell me!”

“You better sleep now,” my father said, covering me more tightly: “now all smart children are sleeping, there’s nothing to think about “never”, never a long day.

- Just a day? Just one long day? How glad I am! And are you happy, dad?

“Not particularly happy, Jimmy; short or long - a day, I don't care.

“And it’s not all the same for mom! If "never" is only one day, then in a day mother will return to us; Will you be happy, dad?

He raised himself even higher on his elbow and looked at me with a sad look, as I could see in the light of the moon that looked out the window.

- Died!

- Yes, she died! repeated the father in a whisper. - You see the bird on the shelf (it was one of the birds given to Joe for stuffing. In the dim light of the moon, I could clearly see it; it was terrible, without eyes, with a wide-open beak and shiny iron wires pulled through all the body) See, Jimmy, this is death. Mom cannot come to life and come to us, just as this bullfinch cannot jump off the shelf and fly around the rooms.

- I thought, dad, she died, so she left, but mom didn’t leave? So she's up there with these sharp things stuck in her?

- Oh, my God, no, what to do with this child! The thing is, Jimmy, Mom can't see, hear, walk, or feel, even if they prick her all over now, she won't feel. She's dead, Jimmy, and soon they'll bring a coffin and put her in there and lower her into the hole! My poor Polly! My poor dear! And I didn’t kiss you before death, as you wanted, no, I said goodbye to you!

His father's voice suddenly broke off, he buried his face in the pillow and sobbed like he had never sobbed. Frightened by this end of our conversation, I, for my part, began to scream and cry. Father, fearing that my cry would wake up all the tenants in the house, made an effort to suppress his grief and began to calm me down.

This, however, turned out to be not entirely easy.

The explanations my father gave me scared me terribly. In vain did he try to console me with caresses, and threats, and promises. He took it into his head to tell me a fairy tale and began to talk about some terrible ogre who eats boiled children every day for breakfast, but this story alarmed me even more. He groped out of the pocket of his trousers a purse of money and presented it to me; he promised to take me for a ride in his cart the next morning; knowing that I love herrings, he promised me a whole herring for breakfast if I was a smart boy; I asked for a long time to buy me one pretty horse, which I saw in the window of a toy store, my father gave my word of honor that he would buy me this horse if I went to bed and stopped screaming.

No no no! I demanded a mother and wanted nothing else. I certainly wanted to go with my father to her upstairs, where she lies all torn up like bullfinch Joe, and set her free; I asked, begged my father to go upstairs and help the poor mother in some way, without this I would not agree to calm down.

My father said this so firmly that I immediately saw the impossibility of achieving anything with my cry. I agreed to kiss him and be smart on the condition that he would immediately get up and light a candle, and that I would see my mother early tomorrow morning. The father was very happy with such workable conditions, but in fact it turned out that the first of them was not as easy as he thought. Jenkins took the candle away as he left, so he had nothing to light.

“What a nasty Jenkins,” he said, thinking of turning the matter into a joke: “he took all the candles; we'll ask him tomorrow, what do you think?

I remembered that the women, when they were in my mother's room, went downstairs and put a candle and matches right next to the door of Jenkins' apartment, and I told my father about it. But he apparently did not want to take this candle, and he again began to persuade me and promise me various gifts. Instead of any answer, I again began to scream and call my mother loudly. The father, grumbling a little, quietly went out the door, brought a candle, lit it and put it on the shelf.

At that time, of course, I was too small for any serious thoughts, but later the question of how my father must have felt looking at this burning candle often occurred to me. Perhaps he was thinking that this candle had been burning all evening in his mother's room, that her weakening eyes betrayed her at the time when she looked at the flame of this very candle! And he fixed his eyes on the fire with an expression of such anguish, such grief, such as I never saw him again. I didn't feel anything like that; all I wanted was for the candle to be longer, I was afraid that this little tallow cinder would soon burn out, and again I would be left in the dark with those terrible thoughts that came into my head after my father's story. Meanwhile, even with a candle, I felt a little better: its light fell directly on the unfortunate bullfinch, and I could quite make out its black, spherical head, its wide-open beak, its stiff legs. I felt that I was trembling with fear at the sight of this monster, and yet I could not take my eyes off him. But then the burnt out candle began to crackle and flare, I made an effort on myself, turned my face to the wall and fell asleep. I slept peacefully until the jingling of tea-ware was heard in Jenkins's room in the morning.