“Lyudochka” Astaf’eva in brief summary
Fifteen years ago, the author heard this story, and he does not know why, she lives in it and burns her heart. “Maybe it’s all about her depressing routine, in her disarming simplicity?” It seems to the author that the heroine was called Lyudochka. She was born in a small endangered village Vycugan. Parents are collective farmers. The father drank from the depressing work, was fussy and blunt. Mother was afraid for the future child, so I tried to conceive a break from the husband’s booze. But the girl, “hurt by the unhealthy flesh of her father, was born weak, sickly and whiny.” She grew sluggish, like a roadside grass, she rarely laughed and sang, she did not leave the three-grade school at school, although she was tacitly diligent. The father of the life of the family disappeared long ago and imperceptibly. Mother and daughter lived without it more freely, better, more cheerful. In their house from time to time there were peasants, ” one tractor
When Lyudochka finished school, her mother sent her to the city – to build her own life, she herself was going to move to the forestry enterprise. “At first, the mother promised to help Lyudochka with money, potatoes and what God will send – in old age, you see, and she will help them.”
Lyudochka came to the city by train and spent the first night at the station. In the morning I went to the station hairdresser to do the perm, manicure, I wanted to dye my hair, but the old hairdresser advised against it: the girl had already weak hair. Quiet but in a village way, she tried to sweep a barber shop, spread some soap to someone, handed over a napkin
Gavrilovna carefully examined Lyudochka and her documents, went with her to the city commune, where she arranged for a job as a barber’s apprentice, and took her to live with simple conditions: help around the house, do not drive for more than eleven, do not drive the guys into the house, do not drink wine, tobacco does not smoke, obey all the hostess and read it as a mother. Instead of paying rent, let the logging company bring a firewood machine. “If you become a pupil, live, but if you become a master, go to a communal life, God will give it, and you will arrange a life… If you get drunk, I’ll drive you from the place.” I warned the dweller that in razdugoditsu legs and wails at night. In general, for Lyudochka Gavrilovna made an exception: for some time she did not take lodgers, and even more so girls. Once upon a time, back in Khrushchev’s time, she had two students of a financial technical school: painted, in trousers… the floor was not shallow, the dishes were not washed, they did not distinguish between their own and others’. They ate master pies, sugar, which grew in the garden. To the remark of Gavrilovna, the girls called her “selfish”, and she, not understanding an unknown word, cursed them about my mother and drove them away. And since that time she let only guys into the house, quickly taught them to the housekeeping. Two of them, especially sensible, have taught me how to cook and manage with a Russian stove.
Lyudochka Gavrilovna let out because she guessed in her village relatives, not yet spoiled by the city, and became uncomfortable with loneliness in her old age. “You’ll fall – you have no one to give water to.”
Lyudochka was obedient to the girl, but her teaching was tense, the barbering business, which seemed so simple, was given with difficulty, and when she passed the appointed time, she could not hand over to the master. In the barbershop, Lyudochka worked as a cleaner and stayed in the state, continuing the practice – she sheared under the typewriter of the recruits, the corn of the schoolchildren, she learned how to make the haircut at home, cutting the scared mods from the village of Vepaversee, where Gavrilovna’s house stood under the schismatics. I made hairstyles on the heads of spinning disco girls, like those of foreign hit stars, without taking any fees for it.
Gavrilovna sold all household chores to Lyudochka, all her economic life. The old woman’s legs ached more and more, and Lyudochka’s eyes twitched as she rubbed the ointment into the twisted legs of the mistress, who was finishing the last year before retirement. The smell from the ointment was so fierce, the screams of Gavrilovna were so heartbreaking that the cockroaches scattered around their neighbors, the flies died to the last. Gavrilovna complained about her work, which made her disabled, and then comforted Lyudochka that she would not be left without a piece of bread, after she had studied at the master.
For help in the home and care in old age, Gavrilovna promised Lyudochka to make a permanent residence permit, to write down her house, if the girl would continue to behave modestly as well, take care of the hut, the yard, bend her back in the garden and look at her, the old woman, when she absolutely becomes fat.
From work Lyudochka went by tram, and then walked through the dying park of Veveverze, humanly – the park of the car-steam locomotive, planted in the 30s and destroyed in the 50’s. Someone wanted to build a pipe through the park. Have dug out a ditch, have spent a pipe, but have forgotten to dig. The black pipe with bends lay in the steamed clay, hissed, hovered, boiling hot bush. Over time, the pipe was clogged, and the hot stream flowed overhead, circling the iridescent poisonous fuel oil rings and various rubbish. The trees dried up, the foliage flew around. Only poplar, clumsy, with a broken bark, with horny branches on the top, leaned on the roots of the earth with their paws, grew, sowed the fluff and dropped autumn leaves strewn with woody scabies.
A bridge with railings was thrown across the ditch, which were broken every year and rebuilt every spring. When the locomotives were replaced by diesel locomotives, the pipe got completely clogged, and a hot mash of mud and mazut still flowed along the ditch. The banks were overgrown with all kinds of foul woods, here and there stood stunted birches, mountain ash and lindens. Farther and fir trees, but beyond the infant age they did not go – they cut down by the New Year ingenious residents of the village, and pines were plowed goats and all lecherous cattle. The park looked like “after the bombing or invasion of intrepid enemy cavalry.” There was a constant stench all around, daughters, kittens, dead piglets and everything that burdened the inhabitants of the village were thrown into the ditch.
But people can not exist without nature, therefore in the park there were reinforced concrete benches – wooden instantly broke. The children were running around in the park, the punks were playing, which was amused by playing cards, drinking, fights, “sometimes to death.” “They were imitating here and the girls…” Perverted Artyomka-soap, with a foamy white head. Lyudochka tried to tame the rags on Artemky’s wild head, but she could not do anything. His curls, reminiscent of soap foam from a distance, turned out to be that sticky horns from the station cafeteria – they welded them, threw them into an empty plate, so they stuck together and lay unconscious and lay. “And not for the sake of a hairstyle did the guy come to Lyudochka. became engaged in scissors and comb, Artemka began to grab her for different places. Lyudochka first dodged Artyomka’s grasping hands, and when it did not help, she hit him with a typewriter on the head and punched it to the blood, I had to pour iodine on the head of a “cheerful person”. Artemka zawalyukal and whistled to catch air. Since then, “he has stopped his hooliganism”, moreover, the punks told Lyudochka not to touch.
Now Lyudochka was afraid of nobody and nothing, walked from the tram to the house through the park at any hour and any time of the year, responding to the greeting of the punks with a “nice smile”. Once ataman-soap “conceived” Lyudochka in the central city park for dancing in a pen, like an animal.
“In a pen-zoo and people behaved like a beast… The herd was raging and raging, creating a skinny shame and delirium from dancing… Music, helping the herd in disgrace and savagery, struggled in convulsions, cracked, hummed, rattled drums, moaning, howling. “
Lyudochka was frightened of what was happening, huddled in a corner, looking for Artyomka’s eyes to intercede, but “soap lapped in this bubbling gray foam.” Lyudochku snatched into the circle of crooked, cheeked, she barely fought off the gentleman and fled home. Gavrilovna instructed the “guesthouse” that if Lyudochka “surrendered to the master, determined with the profession, she would find her a suitable working guy without any dances – not the same punks live in the world…”. Gavrilovna assured me that there was only one disgrace from dancing. Lyudochka in all agreed with her, believed that she was very lucky with the mentor, who has a rich life experience.
The girl cooked, washed, scrubbed, whitened, painted, washed, ironed, and it was not a burden to her to keep the house clean. But if you get married – she can do everything, her husband can be in everything, and her husband will love and appreciate it. Lyudochka did not sleep enough often, felt weak, but nothing, this can be experienced.
He sometimes returned from a place not far from everyone in the district famous person known as Strekach. He looked like a black, narrow-eyed beetle, too, though under the nose, instead of the tentacles at the Strekach, there was a dirty little blotch, with a grin resembling a grin, spoiled teeth were drawn, as if made from cement crumbs. Vicious since childhood, he was still at school engaged in robbery – he took away the “silveries, gingerbread”, cud, from the kids, especially in the “shiny wrapper”. In the seventh grade, Strekach was already dragging around with a knife, but nobody needed to take it away from him – “the small population of the village brought him, like a khan, a tribute, everything he ordered and wanted.” Soon, Strekach cut someone with a knife, he was registered with the police, and after attempted rape, the postman received a first term of three years with a suspended sentence. But Strekach did not calm down. He threatened the neighboring dachas, threatened the owners with a fire, so the owners of the dachas started to leave a drink, a snack with a wish: “Dear guest, Drink, eat, rest – just do not set fire to God!” Strekach lived almost all winter, but then he was taken, he sat down for three years. Since then, he has been “in labor camps, from time to time arriving in his native village, as if on a well-deserved vacation.” The local punks then walked behind the Strekach, recruited mind-reason “, considering him a thief in law, and he did not shun, – small squeezed his team, playing something in the cartoons, then in a thimble. At that time Strekach was sitting on the bench, drinking expensive cognac and masya without work, that night, and she promised: “Do not freak out. That’s the masses of dances will fall, we’ll give you ticks for hiring. As much as you want…”
Suddenly he saw Lyudochka. Artemka-soap tried to put in a word for her, but Strekach did not listen, he was found courageous. He caught the girl by the waistband of the cloak, tried to sit him on his knees. She tried to get rid of him, but he threw it across the bench and raped. The punks were near. Strekach forced the punks to “get dirty”, so that not only he was the culprit. Seeing the tattered Lyudochka, Artemka-soap was frightened and tried to pull on her cloak, and she, madly, ran, shouting: “Soap! Soap!” Having reached the house Gavrilovna, Lyudochka fell on the steps and lost consciousness. I woke up on an old couch, where she was pulled by her compassionate Gavrilovna, sitting next to her and comforting her little dweller. Recovering, Lyudochka decided to go to her mother.
In the village of Vychugan, “there are two whole houses left.” In one stubborn old woman Vychuganicha lived out her life, in the other – Lyudochka’s mother with her stepfather. ” The whole village, suffocated in the wild, with a scarcely trampled path, was in boarded-up windows, shattered birdhouses, wildly overgrown with poplars, cherry-trees, aspens between the huts. In the summer when Lyudochka finished school, the old apple tree gave an unprecedented harvest of red liquid apples. Vyuchuganiya frightened: “Children, do not eat these apples.” It’s not good! ” “And one night a live branch of an apple-tree, unable to withstand the gravity of the fruit, broke off: a bare, flat trunk remained behind the parted houses, like a cross with a broken cross-bar in the churchyard.” Monument to a dying Russian village. “One more:” Now, “prophesized Vychuganikh,” Odinov the middle of Russia will be stabbed in a number, and remembered by an unclean force plagued,
Lyudochka’s mother also began to pray, only God remained hope. Lyudochka giggled at her mother and shook the crack.
Soon Vychuganicha died. Lyudochka’s stepfather clicked the men from the timber enterprise, they took the old woman on the tractor-sled to the churchyard, but there was nothing to remember. Lyudochka’s mother gathered something on the table. They remembered that Vychuganich was the last of the kind of scoundrels, the founders of the village.
Her mother was washing in the kitchen when she saw her daughter, wiped her hands on her apron, put them to her large stomach, said that the cat had “washed the guests” since morning, she was still surprised: “Where do we get it from? Looking at Lyudochka, the mother immediately realized that her daughter was in trouble. “It’s not necessary to understand the mind, but what’s wrong with it, but through this… inevitability, all the women must pass… How many more of them, poor things, lie ahead…” She found out that her daughter had come for the weekend. I was glad that I had sour cream to her arrival, my stepfather had pumped up honey. The mother said that she was soon moving with her husband to the forestry enterprise, only “like a mug…”. Embarrassed that at the end of the fourth decade she decided to give birth, she explained: “He wants a child himself, he builds a house in the village… and this one will be sold, but he does not mind if we rewrite it…” Lyudochka refused: “Why should he me.” Mother rejoiced, maybe hundreds of five will be given on the slate, on the glass.
Mother burst into tears, staring out the window: “Who benefits from this mess?” Then she went to reach, and her daughter sent to milk a cow and bring firewood. “Himself” must come home from work late, and his parish will have time to cook the soup. Then they will drink with their stepfather, but the daughter answered: “I have not learned yet, Mama, neither to drink nor to shear.” Mother calmed down, that shear will learn “when-nito.” The gods do not burn pots.
Lyudochka thought about her stepfather. How difficult it is, however, he ventured into the economy with excitement. With cars, motors, guns, it was easy to manage, but for a long time I could not distinguish one vegetable from another in the garden, haymaking perceived as pampering and celebration. When they finished the haystack, the mother ran away to cook food, and Lyudochka – to the river. Returning home, she heard an “animal roar” behind the obmysk. Lyudochka was very surprised to see how her stepfather – “a man with a shaven, graying his head from all sides, with deep furrows on his face, all in tattoos, arrogant, long-armed, slapping himself on the stomach, suddenly ran skipping along the shallows, and a hoarse roar of joy erupted from a burnt or rusty little inside of a familiar person, “Lyudochka began to guess that he had no childhood. At home, she laughingly told her mother how her stepfather frolicked in the water. ” But where could he have learned to bathe? Since childhood in exile and in the camps, under escort and security guards in a state banya. He has a life of oh-ho-ho… “After a moment’s hesitation, the mother built herself up and, as if proving to someone, continued:” But he’s a decent man, maybe he’s good. “
From that time Lyudochka stopped being afraid of her stepfather, but did not become closer. My stepfather did not let anyone close to me.
Now it was suddenly thought: to run to the timber industry, for seven versts, to find my stepfather, lean against him and cry over his rough chest. Maybe he’ll pat her on the head, she’ll regret… Suddenly she decided to leave with the morning train. Mother was not surprised: “Well… if necessary, duck…” Gavrilovna did not expect a quick return of the little wench. Lyudochka explained that her parents were moving, not up to her. She saw two ropes attached to the sack instead of the straps, and she cried. My mother said that she tied these ropes to the cradle, put her foot in a noose and wobbled with her foot… Gavrilovna was afraid that Lyudochka was crying? “I’m sorry for Mamma.” The old woman was deeply ashamed, and there was nobody to regret her, then she warned: Artemka-soap was taken away, Lyudochka’s face was all scratched… a sign. He was told to keep quiet, let’s say death. From Strekach and the old woman were warned, that if the little woman that pushes the excess, she will be nailed to the pillar with a nail, and the old woman will be burned by a hut. Gavrilovna complained that she had all the best – a corner in her old age, she could not lose him. Lyudochka promised to move to the hostel. Gavrilovna reassured: the bandit will not work long, will soon sit down again, “and I’ll call you back.” Lyudochka remembered how, while living in a state farm, she caught a cold, opened pneumonia, she was put in a district hospital. Infinite, the long night she saw a dying guy, learned from the nurse his simple story. Recruited from some distant places, a lonely boy caught a cold in the cutting area, a furuncle jumped out on his temple. An inexperienced paramedic scolded him that she was addressing every trifle, and the next day she accompanied a guy who fell into unconsciousness to the district hospital. In the hospital, a skull was uncovered, but they could not do anything – the pus began to do their destructive work. The guy was dying, so he was taken to the corridor. Lyudochka sat for a long time and looked at the tormented man, then put a hand to his face. The guy gradually calmed down, with an effort opened his eyes, tried to say something, but it was only “usu-usu… usu…”. She sensed the female senses, he tries to thank her. Lyudochka sincerely regretted the guy, so young, lonely, probably, and fall in love with no one in time, brought a stool, sat next to him and took the hand of the guy. He looked hopefully at her, whispered something. Lyudochka thought that he whispered a prayer, and began to help him, then tired and dozed off. She woke up, saw that the guy was crying, shook his hand, but he did not respond to her shake. He comprehended the price of compassion – ” one more habitual betrayal of the dying man has taken place. “They say,” The living betray him! And not his pain, not his life, his suffering is dear to them, and they want his torment to end soon, in order not to suffer himself. “The boy took Lyudochka’s hand and turned away -” he was not expecting little consolation from her, he waited for the victim, the consent to be with him to the end, maybe, and die with him. Then a miracle would have happened: together they would have become stronger than death, they would have risen to life, a mighty impulse would have appeared in it, “the way to resurrection would open.” But there was not a man who could sacrifice himself for the dying person, and alone he did not prevail death.) Lyudochka sideways, as if convicted of a bad act, stealthily went to her bed. Since then, the feeling of profound guilt over the deceased lumber-boy has not ceased. Now, in sorrow and desolation, she felt the utter rejection of a dying person in a particularly acute, tangible way. She had to drink to the end a cup of loneliness, crafty human sympathy – the space around everything narrowed, as near the bed behind the hospital peeled stove where the dying guy lay. Lyudochka was ashamed: “Why did she pretend then, why?” If indeed she had the readiness to end up with the dying to the end, to accept the torment for him as in old times, maybe, in fact, unknown forces would have appeared in it. and without a miracle, do not resurrect the dying, anyway the consciousness that she is capable… to give him all herself, to the last breath, would make her strong, self-confident, ready to repel the evil forces. ” Now she understood the psychological state of single prisoners. Lyudochka again remembered her stepfather: here he is probably from such, from the strong? But how, from which place to approach him? Lyudochka thought that in trouble, all alone, all the same, and there was nothing to be ashamed of and despised.
There were no places in the hostel yet, and the girl continued to live with Gavrilovna. The hostess taught the little house “to return in the dark” not through the park, so that the “Saranopal” did not know that she lives in the village. But Lyudochka continued to walk through the park, where she once caught the guys, screamed Strekachom, imperceptibly pushing to the bench. Lyudochka understood what they wanted. She wore a razor in her pocket, wanting to cut off the “dignity of Strekach under the root”. About terrible this revenge did not come up with the idea itself, but once heard about such an act of a woman in a hairdresser. Guys Ludochka said, it’s a pity that there is no Strek, “such a prominent gentleman.” She cheekily declared: “Fuck off, boys, I’ll go and change into a shabby, not a rich woman.” The guys let her go so that she could come back soon, warned not to “joke”. At home Lyudochka changed into an old dress, girded with the same rope from her cradle, took off her shoes, took a piece of paper, but could not find a pen or pencil and jumped out into the street. On the way to the park I read an announcement about the recruitment of young men and women in the forest industry. A saving thought flashed through: “Maybe leave?” “But then another thought interrupted the first: there, in the woods, a drifter on strekache and all with a mustache.” In the park, she found a long-sighted poplar with a clumsy bough over the path, swept the rope around him, dexterously fastened the loop, even though she was quiet, but she knew a lot in the village. Lyudochka climbed onto the broken poplar, put a noose around her neck. She mentally bid farewell to relatives and friends, asked forgiveness from God. Like all closed-minded people, it was quite decisive. “And here, with a noose around her neck, she too, as in her childhood, she squeezed her face with her hands and, pushing her feet away, as if from a high bank, she rushed into the pool. Boundless and bottomless. “
She managed to feel how the heart in the chest swells, it seems, breaks the ribs and breaks out of the chest. My heart quickly tired, weak, and then all pain and pain left Lyudochka…
The guys waiting for her in the park began to scold the girl who deceived them. One was sent for reconnaissance. He shouted to his friends: “The claws are tearing, the coals, she…” – The Scout was racing with jumps from poplars, from the light. “Later, while sitting in the station restaurant, he told with nervous laughter that he had seen Lyudochka’s quivering and twitching body. decided to warn Strekach and leave somewhere until they were “beaten”.
Buried Lyudochka not in his native abandoned village, but in the city cemetery. My mother at times forgot and shouted. At home Gavrilovna burst into tears: she thought of Lyudochka for her daughter, and what had she done about herself? Stepfather drank a glass of vodka and went out on the porch to smoke. He went to the park and found in place the whole company, headed by Strekach. The bandit asked the man who had come up to him what he wanted. “Look at you came,” – said his stepfather. He jerked a cross from Strekach’s neck and threw it into the bushes. “At least at least do not foul, a sock! God, at least do not paw, leave people!” Strekach tried to threaten the peasant with a knife. My stepfather grinned and caught the hand of Strekach in an elusive lightning movement, pulled it out of his pocket with a piece of cloth. I did not let the bandit come to my senses, raked the collar of the shirt with the dress coat, dragged Strekach by the scruff of the bushes, threw it into the ditch, in response, a heartbreaking cry. Wiping his hands on his trousers, his stepfather stepped onto the path, the punks took his way. He stared at them with his eyes. “The real, unheeded pahana was felt by the guys, this one did not stain his pants with mud, long ago before anyone, even before the most dirty convoy did not get on his knees.” Shpana fled: who from the park, who dragged the half-welded Strekach from the ditch, someone for the ambulance and to inform the half-asleep mother Strekach about the fate that had befallen her son, whose stormy path from the correctional labor colony to the strict regime camp was over. Having reached the outskirts of the park, Lyudochka’s stepfather stumbled and suddenly saw a piece of rope on the branch. “Some old, to the end, they did not know the power of his high he threw, he caught the bough, he creaked and fell off.” Having held a branch in the hands, for some reason, smelling it, his stepfather said quietly: “Why did not you break off when necessary?” He crushed it into pieces, scattering it in hand, hurried to Gavrilovna’s house. Arriving home and drinking vodka, zasobiralsya in the forestry. At a respectful distance, the wife hurried after him and could not keep up. He took Lyudochka’s belongings from her, helped him to climb up the high stairs to the electric train car and found a free seat. Lyudochka’s mother first whispered, and then in a voice asked God to help give birth and keep at least this child full. She asked for Lyudochka, which she did not save. Then she put her head in a restless position on his shoulder, weakly leaned against him, and it seemed to her, or in fact it was so, he lowered his shoulder so that she would be more cunning and calm, and even pressed her elbow to her side, warmed it. ” He crushed it into pieces, scattering it in hand, hurried to Gavrilovna’s house. Arriving home and drinking vodka, zasobiralsya in the forestry. At a respectful distance, the wife hurried after him and could not keep up. He took Lyudochka’s belongings from her, helped him to climb up the high stairs to the electric train car and found a free seat. Lyudochka’s mother first whispered, and then in a voice asked God to help give birth and keep at least this child full. She asked for Lyudochka, which she did not save. Then she put her head in a restless position on his shoulder, weakly leaned against him, and it seemed to her, or in fact it was so, he lowered his shoulder so that she was cleverer and more calm, and even pressed her elbow to her side, warmed it. ” He crushed it into pieces, scattering it in hand, hurried to Gavrilovna’s house. Arriving home and drinking vodka, zasobiralsya in the forestry. At a respectful distance, the wife hurried after him and could not keep up. He took Lyudochka’s belongings from her, helped him to climb up the high stairs to the electric train car and found a free seat. Lyudochka’s mother first whispered, and then in a voice asked God to help give birth and keep at least this child full. She asked for Lyudochka, which she did not save. Then she put her head in a restless position on his shoulder, weakly leaned against him, and it seemed to her, or in fact it was so, he lowered his shoulder so that she was cleverer and more calm, and even pressed her elbow to her side, warmed it. ” At a respectful distance, the wife hurried after him and could not keep up. He took Lyudochka’s belongings from her, helped him to climb up the high stairs to the electric train car and found a free seat. Lyudochka’s mother first whispered, and then in a voice asked God to help give birth and keep at least this child full. She asked for Lyudochka, which she did not save. Then she put her head in a restless position on his shoulder, weakly leaned against him, and it seemed to her, or in fact it was so, he lowered his shoulder so that she was cleverer and more calm, and even pressed her elbow to her side, warmed it. ” At a respectful distance, the wife hurried after him and could not keep up. He took Lyudochka’s belongings from her, helped him to climb up the high stairs to the electric train car and found a free seat. Lyudochka’s mother first whispered, and then in a voice asked God to help give birth and keep at least this child full. She asked for Lyudochka, which she did not save. Then she put her head in a restless position on his shoulder, weakly leaned against him, and it seemed to her, or in fact it was so, he lowered his shoulder so that she was cleverer and more calm, and even pressed her elbow to her side, warmed it. “
The local police department lacked the strength and ability to split Artemka-soap. With a strict warning, he was released home. With a fright, Artemka entered the communications school, the branch, where they taught them how to climb poles, screw in glasses and pull wires; with a fright, not otherwise, Artemka-soap soon married, and in his stakhanovsky, the fastest in the village, four months after the wedding, there was a curly little child, smiling and cheerful. Grandfather laughed that “this fellow with a flat head, because it was taken out by the forceps to the light of God, he can not even think about with his father’s dad from which end to hang on the pole-he will not understand.”
On the fourth page of the local newspaper, at the end of the quarter, a note appeared on the state of morality in the city, but Lyudochka and Strekach did not please this report. The head of the Internal Affairs Directorate remained two years before retirement, and he did not want to spoil the positive percentage with questionable data. who left behind themselves no notes, property, valuables and witnesses, went through the suicide registration log of the Internal Affairs Directorate… foolishly putting their hands on themselves. “